It is opk time again and after the turmoil of the last clomid IUI cycle where I used opks to determine the timing of insemination, I have rallied the big guns, the digital ovulation predictor kit. No interpretation, just smiley face or no smiley face. I am on cycle day 12. I took clomid from cycle day 3-7. I began testing with my off brand opk on cd 9. Yesterday the line became a little bit darker, but still negative. Today I will use both my off brand and the digital. Comparison and confirmation, I can't miss it. No uncertainty; perfect timing, just waiting.
An IUI for us means an overnight trip to a city 4 hours away. A positive opk in the afternoon, F returns from work (and phones in a personal day) and we hit the road for a next day insemination. We prepare with charged ipods loaded with podcasts for the drive, plans to eat dinner at that amazing barbeque restaurant when we get there, fingers crossed that we can get a nice motel room that allows dogs on a whim. It is our IUI adventure, and then we return home and hope no one noticed how we disappeared for a day.
This is IUI with clomid #2. After IUI #1 I googled, "Does anyone actually get pregnant from a clomid IUI?" I answered my own question two weeks later, but I am still confused. Could this actually work this time? I have always been amazed at those who seem only to need a little boost from clomid. That is all it took? Why and How?
Stay tuned. This time we'll see.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 21, 2011
Jizo Comforts
The other day I remembered this chapter from Peggy Orenstein's book Waiting For Daisy about the Buddhist bodhisattva, Jizo, who watches over miscarried and aborted fetuses. She realizes that there is no ritual in Western culture acknowledging miscarriage or even a word for a miscarried or aborted fetus in English. In Japanese the word is mizuko. The chapter describes Jizo rituals, shrines and the statues that many women acquire or offer after a miscarriage or abortion.
I don't know if the term mizuko encompasses the state of pregnancy before 8 weeks, before the embryo becomes a fetus. My cousin asked, "Did your RE call it a chemical pregnancy or a miscarriage?" Does it really matter? Yes, I was only pregnant for a few days, we could count it as 5weeks. Yes, I would have mourned the loss of a growing fetus with a heartbeat very differently than I mourned the loss of an early pregnancy that didn't stick. Whenever or whatever the loss, another cycle that didn't work, embryos that didn't implant, I find comfort in the notion of mizuko, and the possibility of ritual or small action that will memorialize what didn't survive.
I wonder what rituals other women, or couples, have performed after a loss. I have a printed image of my antral follicles taken on cd3 and I have the positive hpt from the lost cycle. But this didn't seem to be enough to acknowledge that something did happen. Is it that I need more acknowledgement? Is it that all miscarriages, at whatever marker of time we assign to loss, as well as the pain of continued infertility and failed cycles, need more acknowledgement? I think the answer is yes.
Today I painted the image of Jizo on a rock I found at the beach and offered it to the ocean on a sunny day. My offering to Jizo, my memorial, my action, my mizuko, was washed away by the waves. Mizuko translates to 'water child.' In the absence of a shrine or temple geographically close to me, I thought the ocean would be appropriate.
I don't know if the term mizuko encompasses the state of pregnancy before 8 weeks, before the embryo becomes a fetus. My cousin asked, "Did your RE call it a chemical pregnancy or a miscarriage?" Does it really matter? Yes, I was only pregnant for a few days, we could count it as 5weeks. Yes, I would have mourned the loss of a growing fetus with a heartbeat very differently than I mourned the loss of an early pregnancy that didn't stick. Whenever or whatever the loss, another cycle that didn't work, embryos that didn't implant, I find comfort in the notion of mizuko, and the possibility of ritual or small action that will memorialize what didn't survive.
I wonder what rituals other women, or couples, have performed after a loss. I have a printed image of my antral follicles taken on cd3 and I have the positive hpt from the lost cycle. But this didn't seem to be enough to acknowledge that something did happen. Is it that I need more acknowledgement? Is it that all miscarriages, at whatever marker of time we assign to loss, as well as the pain of continued infertility and failed cycles, need more acknowledgement? I think the answer is yes.
Today I painted the image of Jizo on a rock I found at the beach and offered it to the ocean on a sunny day. My offering to Jizo, my memorial, my action, my mizuko, was washed away by the waves. Mizuko translates to 'water child.' In the absence of a shrine or temple geographically close to me, I thought the ocean would be appropriate.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
October Babies
I'm filling out my new cycle chart for the month. Today is cd 1 again. I will call the clinic and get my instructions for beginning IUI with clomid cycle #2. Everyone is hopeful because the first IUI attempt resulted in a BFP. While I welcome hope, I know that hopeful beginnings result in hopelessly disappointing endings. January cycles also carry more weight than other months for my family. We are a family of October babies. My mom, myself, my brother, my mom's sister, my dad's brother, my great-grandfather, my mother-in law, my cousin, F's aunt, F's great-grandmother, F's cousin, am I forgetting anyone? Everyone loves October babies. Everyone also loves to remind us that if we conceive this month we will have another October baby, that maybe I am "just meant to have an October baby". It doesn't help any to remind them that this will be the third January I have tried to get pregnant.
Oh, really?
Yes, this will be the third January we have been trying for a pregnancy. As I fill out my cycle chart, I write in age: 33, shortest cycle: 28 days, longest cycle: 35 days, month: Jan-Feb, year: 2011, fertility cycle: 24.
24 months. That means 2 years. And thus today I celebrate/mourn the 2 year mark of infertility and my first cycle of 2011.
There are many differing statistics out there but they all basically say something like this (spouted from memory and not from any one source): less than 25% of couples achieve pregnancy on their first cycle. About 60% become pregnant after 6 months of trying, 85% after one year of trying. Somewhere around 95% achieve pregnancy after two long years of trying.
And here we are. The non-achievers. The doubly confirmed infertiles. After one year you are diagnosed with infertility, after two years you are, yep, definitely infertile! And at the point in the statistics fertility trajectory where those statistics end. After all, 95 % of us (well, not us; they are, we aren't) are pregnant. Tonight I will fill up a glass of wine and toast F and I for outlasting the statistics. For a new year, for a new cycle, for another shot at an October baby.
Oh, really?
Yes, this will be the third January we have been trying for a pregnancy. As I fill out my cycle chart, I write in age: 33, shortest cycle: 28 days, longest cycle: 35 days, month: Jan-Feb, year: 2011, fertility cycle: 24.
24 months. That means 2 years. And thus today I celebrate/mourn the 2 year mark of infertility and my first cycle of 2011.
There are many differing statistics out there but they all basically say something like this (spouted from memory and not from any one source): less than 25% of couples achieve pregnancy on their first cycle. About 60% become pregnant after 6 months of trying, 85% after one year of trying. Somewhere around 95% achieve pregnancy after two long years of trying.
And here we are. The non-achievers. The doubly confirmed infertiles. After one year you are diagnosed with infertility, after two years you are, yep, definitely infertile! And at the point in the statistics fertility trajectory where those statistics end. After all, 95 % of us (well, not us; they are, we aren't) are pregnant. Tonight I will fill up a glass of wine and toast F and I for outlasting the statistics. For a new year, for a new cycle, for another shot at an October baby.
Friday, January 14, 2011
An Egg Donor's Tale
After writing my previous post in support of re-writing the fairytale story of building our families, I came across An Egg Donor's Tale, written for Motherlode in response to Thernstrom's nytimes article Meet the Twiblings. An anonymous women, now a mother in her early forties, relates her experience as an egg donor when she was in her 20's and points out some of the failings in Thernstrom's article--failings that, in my opinion, are always the trouble with fairytales.
She also adds more than just a critique of Thernstrom's writing. An Egg Donor's Tale brings up the long term and complex emotions and connections she feels toward the children, now teenagers, who carry her DNA but do not know how they were conceived, one of which she says, looks very much like her.
She also adds more than just a critique of Thernstrom's writing. An Egg Donor's Tale brings up the long term and complex emotions and connections she feels toward the children, now teenagers, who carry her DNA but do not know how they were conceived, one of which she says, looks very much like her.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
IF in the news, a missing happy new year post and something about how it has taken me 3 weeks to return
but I am still here. For a week I have been slowly writing pieces of posts, but mostly I've just been commenting and reading from the Creme de la Creme and will do a post on some of the amazing blogs I have encountered so far later this week.
Recently, I came across this article in the New York Times Magazine about Gestational Surrogacy and Egg Donation and loved the story, the way the author, Melanie Thernstrom, tells it and the fairytale happy ending she creates for her children. Friends criticize her for romanticizing third party reproduction--and she really does, in a way that at first concerned me--she refers to the young woman who donated gametes as her Fairy Goddonor, as one example. But as I read Thernstrom's story I realized that what she is doing is rewriting the fairy tale birth story that many women (and some men) invent before we start trying to conceive (or like, when we're 8 and playing house and then again as young feminists reading Our Bodies, Ourselves), before we know anything about infertility--the fairytale we realize we must grieve when we can't get pregnant on our own, and then grieve again when fertility treatments fail. She is rewriting this fairytale for her children, and herself, so that her children will understand and value their birth story.
I find this act very touching and I become convinced by the romanticism rather than skeptical of it. I think we need to reinstate the romanticism and naivete we lose during infertility. I welcome it here because by the end of the article we have a wonderful story about both surrogacy and egg donation. The skeptical side of me still acknowledges, along with the romanticism, the great monetary wealth it took to make this story happen: two gestational carriers, 1 egg donor, and before that, multiple rounds of IVF. This could never be my fairytale or the fairytale of most infertile couples. But despite this, she does write some very relatable passages about the experience of infertility in general, as well as fears she experiences along the way regarding a lack of control over the pre-natal health of her children, her long term relationship with her children's egg donors and surrogates and how to explain the genetic and gestational concept she ends up calling Twiblings. I am always thankful for an article that offers experience based information about infertility, treatment options and the different paths to family building. Definitely read it if you haven't already.
As opposed to the IVF news Jezebel chose to highlight this week about the Australian couple who aborted twin male fetuses conceived through IVF because they want a girl. The issue undermined by the sensational headline is that Australia, like many other countries, does not allow PGD to be used for sex selection in the absence of a genetic condition. It is actually a sad story (there is a link within the Jezebel text that will take you to the AU Herald, which does a much better job at describing the situation). The couple is currently fighting this regulation and if they lose, they plan to seek IVF in the US. I have heard of quite a few clinics that advertise IVF services for fertile couples wishing to "balance" their families with sex selection.
Slippery slopes, eh?
And here, in other news, Josh and Wendy buy a billboard (click on the image for link):
Creme de la Creme posts coming soon!
Recently, I came across this article in the New York Times Magazine about Gestational Surrogacy and Egg Donation and loved the story, the way the author, Melanie Thernstrom, tells it and the fairytale happy ending she creates for her children. Friends criticize her for romanticizing third party reproduction--and she really does, in a way that at first concerned me--she refers to the young woman who donated gametes as her Fairy Goddonor, as one example. But as I read Thernstrom's story I realized that what she is doing is rewriting the fairy tale birth story that many women (and some men) invent before we start trying to conceive (or like, when we're 8 and playing house and then again as young feminists reading Our Bodies, Ourselves), before we know anything about infertility--the fairytale we realize we must grieve when we can't get pregnant on our own, and then grieve again when fertility treatments fail. She is rewriting this fairytale for her children, and herself, so that her children will understand and value their birth story.
I find this act very touching and I become convinced by the romanticism rather than skeptical of it. I think we need to reinstate the romanticism and naivete we lose during infertility. I welcome it here because by the end of the article we have a wonderful story about both surrogacy and egg donation. The skeptical side of me still acknowledges, along with the romanticism, the great monetary wealth it took to make this story happen: two gestational carriers, 1 egg donor, and before that, multiple rounds of IVF. This could never be my fairytale or the fairytale of most infertile couples. But despite this, she does write some very relatable passages about the experience of infertility in general, as well as fears she experiences along the way regarding a lack of control over the pre-natal health of her children, her long term relationship with her children's egg donors and surrogates and how to explain the genetic and gestational concept she ends up calling Twiblings. I am always thankful for an article that offers experience based information about infertility, treatment options and the different paths to family building. Definitely read it if you haven't already.
As opposed to the IVF news Jezebel chose to highlight this week about the Australian couple who aborted twin male fetuses conceived through IVF because they want a girl. The issue undermined by the sensational headline is that Australia, like many other countries, does not allow PGD to be used for sex selection in the absence of a genetic condition. It is actually a sad story (there is a link within the Jezebel text that will take you to the AU Herald, which does a much better job at describing the situation). The couple is currently fighting this regulation and if they lose, they plan to seek IVF in the US. I have heard of quite a few clinics that advertise IVF services for fertile couples wishing to "balance" their families with sex selection.
Slippery slopes, eh?
And here, in other news, Josh and Wendy buy a billboard (click on the image for link):
Creme de la Creme posts coming soon!
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