My feet have been a bit puffy. It’s a new thing that started happening about a week ago. I mentioned it to my doula, and she suggested I try putting green cabbage leaves on my feet to reduce swelling. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try, so tonight we sat down to watch Coraline (which I really liked, BTW) and I put cabbage leaves on my feet. Well now I have much stinkier feet, but they are definitely less puffy.
I never would have guessed that would actually work.
That’s right. I need to see it twice.
There were a few things we couldn’t quite remember and the tour’s free, so what the heck, right? Besides, the doula has never been in our hospital so we’re taking her along this time. Should be a fun evening. Tour of the hospital and then a sit down with the doula to talk about our birth plan. Ok, maybe I’m the only one that would describe that as fun 🙂
Nobody really knows what causes infertility. Some of it is genetic, but mostly we just shrug our shoulders and say “I have no idea why I am the way I am”.
This comment from the boards yesterday has me a bit riled up:
“I firmly believe that if you can’t conceive on your own, you shouldn’t. There is a very good reason you cannot, be it biological or God driven.”
Yes this was taken out of context and there was a lot of backpeddling and explaining that she respects those that choose IVF, it’s just not for her, but the words stung.
I have no idea what caused our IF, but I certainly don’t believe that God thinks we shouldn’t have children.
My theories lean more towards environmental and our IF is certainly already affecting every choice we make with regards to our not yet born baby. We are using glass bottles. Why? Many reasons, but one is that BPA was linked to IF. I know that there is now BPA free plastic, but I’m just waiting for the next bit of news regarding plastic and health (besides plastic grosses me out). We will likely choose organic, hormone free foods a lot of the time. Our crib mattress is organic. All of that is because in the back of my mind, all the chemicals scare me. It’s also affecting our decision about circumcision. A poorly done circumcision can certainly lead to infertility.
Anyone that thinks that IF was God’s way of telling me something can back off, unless they think it was God’s way of telling me that I’m a strong person in a strong marriage 🙂
Could someone explain the point of this test to me?
I understand why theoretically they want to treat for GBS. I mean, there can actually be serious consequences if this is passed on to baby during delivery. But the way that they do the test seems pretty useless. I am scheduled for the GBS test for my next appointment. I will be 35 weeks pregnant. Considering that GBS status changes rapidly and the test is being done 5 weeks before I’m due, the results when they do the test likely aren’t indicative of my GBS status on my EDD.
It is highly likely they are treating the entirely wrong group of people for GBS.
There’s been a lot of chatter on the message boards about fertility treatments today and yesterday. Apparently there’s another Natalie Sulemon wanna be out there that’s pregnant with 12 babies. As a result, I typed up a sort of PSA and figured I’d preserve it in the blog.
-Fertility drugs of any kind should not be taken without close monitoring. If your ob/gyn gives you Clomid and says “call me when you’re pregnant” run far, far away. Fertility drugs have risks associated with them and should be taken seriously.
-Even just taking Clomid can result in high order multiples (HOM) if not appropriately monitored.
-Although it’s what we see in the news, fertility treatments resulting in HOM is quite rare. That is because the vast majority of fertility doctors and fertility patients take fertility treatments seriously and are responsible about it. A cycle involving drugs that stimulate the growth of multiple follicles is generally closely monitored and if the cycle is a timed intercourse or IUI cycle the cycle is cancelled if too many follicles are produced.
-IVF generally involves the transfer of 1 or 2 embryos and rarely results in a pregnancy of more than twins. In our case, we transferred 2 embryos, but even transferring that many was a huge debate. We weren’t sure we were ready for twins and when you transfer 2 fertilized embryos twins is a real possibility. In the real world, people take these sorts of decisions seriously.
-Sometimes IVF does involve transferring more than 2 embryos. This is decided on a patient to patient basis depending on their history and the likelyhood of the transfer actually resulting in a more than singleton pregnancy. Taking away the ability of doctors to make these decisions with their patients based on their individual situation makes parenthood even less of a possibility for many couples.
-IMO, any fertility patient that puts themself in a situation that could result in HOM and is not open to selective reduction is a highly irresponsible individual. If you are not open to selective reduction, you either need to take precautions in your treatment to prevent HOM or you need to pursue options other than fertility treatments.
-Infertility is a treatable medical condition. You don’t tell a person pursuing fertility treatements that infertility is God’s way of telling them something unless you feel perfectly comfortable saying the same thing to someone pursuing treatment for cancer or a heart condition.
-There is no such thing as “just adopting”. Adoption is a difficult and expensive path. Most people are choosy about what agency they will use and those agencies are also picky about what clients they will take. Depending on what path you wish to take, adoption can cost upwards of $30,000. Depending on what type of agency you wish to use, you can be quickly eliminated as a potential parent for things that are pretty darn common. Some things that eliminate DH and I from some agencies are treatment for panic anxiety disorder, age, 2 working parents (some want a stay at home mom). All things considered, in many cases, fertility treatments are cheaper, easier and have higher success rates.
I can’t see my OB until next Monday. That puts 5.5 weeks between appointments. I’m sure it’s no big deal, just seems a little weird, know what I mean? It’s not like they do much at those appointments. I could take care of most of it myself by getting on the scale at home and then walking down to a co-workers office here at work and borrowing a blood pressure machine. Ta da! Do it yourself prenatal exam.
My brain just doesn’t work like it used to
I completely spaced going to my ob/gyn appointment last week
Whoops!
Turn around is really fast.
We have the complete set of photos from our maternity session on Wednesday.
First, the link to where she blogged our session:
http://realphotography.com/blog/colorado-springs-maternity-photographer-larissa-and-shawn/
And the links to the slideshow and gallery of all the photos:
http://realphotography.com/slideshows/Larissa/
http://www.realphotography.com/pickpic/gallery/splash.php?gallery_id=40
The slideshow and gallery will both expire on August 21st, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll buy all of the digital images so we’ll have them forever 🙂
For those of you that haven’t already seen these elsewhere on the interwebs, I have a couple pictures from last night’s maternity session. We should have the rest in about 3 weeks. Hooray!
IVF on the Down Low 