I called the sperm bank this morning and bought another ICI vial - just in case. Now I have 3 on ice. The ICI units went down from 15 to 10 in one month. Damn it, this guy's popularity must have gotten out! RATS!
But no matter, I have my 3 units of god-knows-how-many-millions of sperm and I'm good to go. Now I have to call my old RE's office and get that damned lazy records person to make a copy of my entire medical file and send it to me. Be nice if I even got a return call. Argh! Truly glad I'm not with them any longer - I just can't stomach that kind of neglect.
Once I have that file, I'll put everything together in my CCRM file and wait until next AF. I think I should be due around 10/2 which gives me a projected date of 10/10 for testing in Colorado. Woo-friggen-hoo!
I have to remember to take everything - medical records from RE this year, pictures from bilateral salpingectomy (my insides, YUK!), mammogram and pap records from this year. I think that's it, thank goodness! :)
And then I wait for a match.....
9/15/08
My baby daddy's other baby
How could that headline sound any more trailer trash?!
I'll begin by laying it on the table, I fell in love with my sperm donor. Yeap, pathetic, I know! I love him so much that I wouldn't DARE disclose who he is or the name of the sperm bank because I fear that every single woman out there has just ignored him, for whatever reason and I'm eternally thankful. I bought 2 ICI vials and actually pay to store them at the sperm bank because I'd be devastated if someone snatched them up sooner and I lost out. In fact, tomorrow I intend to buy one more vial (just in case!).
I loved everything about him (intellectual and otherwise). One problem - no adult picture, just a baby pic. And you know what, it barely mattered. I loved him on paper and I loved his voice and I loved his words and I loved an intellectual passion he has that we share. So you get it, right? I love him - the guy who jerked off into a cup for god-knows-how-many-years!
So I decided to see if I could hunt down any of his offspring out there and signed up for the donor registry site (and plunked down $50 bucks for the off-chance I would make contact with a parent to one of his offspring). Voila! It happened. The most awesome angel, "D," mother of the most beautiful little boy wrote me back and actually attached 4 pics. I cried. I looked at this little guy and I saw my future baby. I thought, there he is - beautiful and perfect with 10 fingers and toes and I wanted to eat him up!
"D" said there is a bunch of the mom's of this donor on Facebook so I'm going to try to get in the group and make some connections. I would love to one day share pictures of my own baby and half-sibling to theirs.
So if you're reading this "D," thank you again from the bottom of my heart for opening up your private world to me. I'm so very grateful.
I'll begin by laying it on the table, I fell in love with my sperm donor. Yeap, pathetic, I know! I love him so much that I wouldn't DARE disclose who he is or the name of the sperm bank because I fear that every single woman out there has just ignored him, for whatever reason and I'm eternally thankful. I bought 2 ICI vials and actually pay to store them at the sperm bank because I'd be devastated if someone snatched them up sooner and I lost out. In fact, tomorrow I intend to buy one more vial (just in case!).
I loved everything about him (intellectual and otherwise). One problem - no adult picture, just a baby pic. And you know what, it barely mattered. I loved him on paper and I loved his voice and I loved his words and I loved an intellectual passion he has that we share. So you get it, right? I love him - the guy who jerked off into a cup for god-knows-how-many-years!
So I decided to see if I could hunt down any of his offspring out there and signed up for the donor registry site (and plunked down $50 bucks for the off-chance I would make contact with a parent to one of his offspring). Voila! It happened. The most awesome angel, "D," mother of the most beautiful little boy wrote me back and actually attached 4 pics. I cried. I looked at this little guy and I saw my future baby. I thought, there he is - beautiful and perfect with 10 fingers and toes and I wanted to eat him up!
"D" said there is a bunch of the mom's of this donor on Facebook so I'm going to try to get in the group and make some connections. I would love to one day share pictures of my own baby and half-sibling to theirs.
So if you're reading this "D," thank you again from the bottom of my heart for opening up your private world to me. I'm so very grateful.
9/14/08
Jon & Kate Plus Eight
I can't stomach it, truly. No, it isn't their fault but rather it's the way in which the media hunts down the success stories which only perpetuate the unrealistic outcomes that follow (and the lifelong pains that follow, financial and ethical). Kate says quite defiantly that when the doctor raised "reduction," she said there would be no talk of that. And she went on to carry and deliver 6 healthy babies and I'm delighted for that outcome - for the sake of their children.
Diane Sawyer (whom I adore) spends time covering the Dilley sextuplets every year and beams with delight over a woman who carried what most Golden Retriever's birth - a litter. But Diane spends not one single minute talking about the hundreds/thousands of women who miscarry high order multiples (greater than twins) at 5 months. Diane looks past the stories of women who refuse selective reduction and birth 4 children with devastating physical and mental deficiencies. Diane would rather spend time in a house like Jon & Kate's - where cute, zippy little munchkins run as fast as their tiny legs can take them. I don't blame her, I'd rather be there too over the alternative.
But when presenting a view of multifetal pregnancy outcomes, why not cover in detail the daily lives of families who've had challenges. Why not profile the couple who spent their life savings on IVF and lost their quads at 5 months. Or why not profile the couple who's nearly bankrupt, who are overwhelmed and have mere minutes to shower and spend time with their healthy children while they juggle the Hoyer lifts, wheel chairs and ventilators in their living-room-turned-hospital-suite?
If parents are to make informed decisions - whatever they are - they must do so with facts that are, currently, conveniently much too hidden.
I hope I am never in the position to opt for reduction because I know I would chose it and I know I would pay the price. I don't think "reduction" - a euphemism for an abortion - is the easy way out, by any means. But I think, for me, it would be the lesser of two evils. You see, I know a thing or two about disability. My mother was seriously handicapped from the age of 2. The last ten years of her life were very difficult and, as an only child, I bore an enormous brunt of having to care for her. I can't imagine having to care for a child with severe disabilities with another two running around. Nor do I think I could forgive myself for the emotional havoc that kind of life would do to my life and the life of any other children I might have.
It's blissfully simple to choose no reduction when you haven't ever provided daily, lifelong care for a severely handicapped individual that you love. It's blissfully simple to say no to reduction when you haven't lost an entire multi-order pregnancy at 5 months.
I think once either of those things happen, you develop a less black and white perspective on reduction.
Diane Sawyer (whom I adore) spends time covering the Dilley sextuplets every year and beams with delight over a woman who carried what most Golden Retriever's birth - a litter. But Diane spends not one single minute talking about the hundreds/thousands of women who miscarry high order multiples (greater than twins) at 5 months. Diane looks past the stories of women who refuse selective reduction and birth 4 children with devastating physical and mental deficiencies. Diane would rather spend time in a house like Jon & Kate's - where cute, zippy little munchkins run as fast as their tiny legs can take them. I don't blame her, I'd rather be there too over the alternative.
But when presenting a view of multifetal pregnancy outcomes, why not cover in detail the daily lives of families who've had challenges. Why not profile the couple who spent their life savings on IVF and lost their quads at 5 months. Or why not profile the couple who's nearly bankrupt, who are overwhelmed and have mere minutes to shower and spend time with their healthy children while they juggle the Hoyer lifts, wheel chairs and ventilators in their living-room-turned-hospital-suite?
If parents are to make informed decisions - whatever they are - they must do so with facts that are, currently, conveniently much too hidden.
I hope I am never in the position to opt for reduction because I know I would chose it and I know I would pay the price. I don't think "reduction" - a euphemism for an abortion - is the easy way out, by any means. But I think, for me, it would be the lesser of two evils. You see, I know a thing or two about disability. My mother was seriously handicapped from the age of 2. The last ten years of her life were very difficult and, as an only child, I bore an enormous brunt of having to care for her. I can't imagine having to care for a child with severe disabilities with another two running around. Nor do I think I could forgive myself for the emotional havoc that kind of life would do to my life and the life of any other children I might have.
It's blissfully simple to choose no reduction when you haven't ever provided daily, lifelong care for a severely handicapped individual that you love. It's blissfully simple to say no to reduction when you haven't lost an entire multi-order pregnancy at 5 months.
I think once either of those things happen, you develop a less black and white perspective on reduction.
9/13/08
Time heals all wounds
Figuratively and literally. The day after my surgery, I felt like Mike Tyson went a couple of rounds with me in the ring - focusing on upper body blows. My throat hurt and my neck was sore - even my jaw hurt. Believe it or not, I worked from home because I am so busy at work, I just couldn't check out after the surgery. And the day after that (Thursday), I just drove into the office and worked but I felt like shit. My breathing was depressed and I struggled to inhale without pain. I contemplated calling Dr. M but decided to wait and see. Well, yesterday (Friday), I woke up, showered and felt about 60% better than day before.
Today I feel totally well. Sure, I get some pain in my abdomen probably associated with internal healing and the stitches but, otherwise, I'm good. :)
Even my mental state is better. I decided I'll head out to CCRM at the onset of my next cycle so I can get on the donor egg waiting list and then do what I have to do....wait.
And I've lost 3 lbs. since the surgery. Woo Hoo! (another 32 to go!)
Today I feel totally well. Sure, I get some pain in my abdomen probably associated with internal healing and the stitches but, otherwise, I'm good. :)
Even my mental state is better. I decided I'll head out to CCRM at the onset of my next cycle so I can get on the donor egg waiting list and then do what I have to do....wait.
And I've lost 3 lbs. since the surgery. Woo Hoo! (another 32 to go!)
9/9/08
Bilateral Salpingectomy!
I'll preface this post by begging you to blame the anesthesia for my irrational feelings.
I'm sterile! How could a woman who actively wants to have a child electively CHOOSE to have her fallopian tubes ripped out?! Ugh! It defies the most basic common sense and every sense of womanhood we're born with. These were my parts - happily given away to the surgeon.
Alas, I try to remember, I had to do this IN ORDER to get pregnant. What an ironic twist! My tubes were blocked and semi-blocked. My highest recorded FSH (this past May) was 22 and I'll be 42 in 3 months. Logically I know that ONLY a miracle would have found me rolling in the hay with Vince Vaughn (yummy!) whose world-champ-husky-guy-sperm could break through the semi-blocked tube, find that one-in-a-million crusty old egg that smells slightly viable, fertilize it and create Super-Embryo,able to leap tall buildings err...able to coast back down the semi-blocked tube, find a cozy spot in my uterus, implant and, somehow, manage to remain there for 38 more weeks without being poisoned by the fluid a hydrosalpinx (blocked tube) regurgitates back into the uterus and onto an early embryo, thereby causing implantation deficiency and miscarriage.
Rational enough, right?
But I still think, hey, isn't that Vince Vaughn across the street walking his dog? It's a sign you idiot - you were too radical, yet again!!!
Well, while I try to ponder what our children would have looked like, I'll report on the day's events (for educational and entertainment value):
8:30 AM. Surgery on schedule. I walk into the operating room and am blasted with U2's, Still haven't found what I'm looking for. Indeed, how prophetic! A minimum of ten people are scurrying around on cue, not missing a beat. That feels good - when they run smoothly, I feel better. I tell everyone who asks how I'm doing about my palpitations (on/off for weeks now - been checked out several times by Cardiologist 2 years, one stress echo and all good - maybe one bout with a-fib that resolved on its own but otherwise just benign PVC's - in other words normal). No matter, I'm scared shitless. I sit on the table, just over the little carved-out depression in the table which my va-ja-ja should sit directly over and begin to lie back when the anesthesiologist points to the nurse and to my ass "she's wearing underwear." I was mortified that he noticed. You see, to make matters only more humiliating for me, I got my period yesterday morning - so I had to wear a pad and it sure doesn't hold itself suspended to my undercarriage. She says "it's okay, I'll take it off." She was such a sweetheart and an angel, truly (because she wound up waiting until I was out to take them off of me - sure, everyone got to see it but at least I wasn't conscious during the "show"). They started to put warm blankets all over me - my doctor was actually shivering in the 65 degree room. Man it's cold in there! And then they slid massagers under my legs. Honestly, if I wasn't going to be put under general anesthesia (the thought of which I ABHOR!), I would liken this to an awesome spa day where ten people cater to me, talk about me, run around for me - I could get used to that kind of life; lemme tell ya, it doesn't suck! Dr. M (my Gyn surgeon, whom I LOVE!) puts a mask over my face and tells me to relax. I feel my heart going nuts and can hear it beat erratically on the monitor. I say through the mask (with what had to be real fear in my eyes) "God, my heart" and he is such a honey that he pulls his face right over mine - six inches away - and he says "yeah, I see it but listen to me, you're going to be just fine, think good positive thoughts and sleep; I promise, I'm going to take great care of you" and I wanted to cry, it was really so much in the way he said it, with such sincerity and kindness. Hey, ultimately, some things are out of even his control but I trusted his words and their timing.
And I woke up. But this time and for the first time EVER I woke up IN THE OPERATING ROOM. Wow! Big bulb lights overhead "Sky, breathe Sky, everything's fine - you did great, tubes are out, burned off some endometriosis and your uterus looks great too, I'll see you in a bit." Oh and then I tossed my cookies. I refused all pain meds from the time I was conscious. Can I just say, I don't know how people can become addicted to pain meds. I can handle roller coasters but give me codeine, percocet, vicodin - anything - and I will toss my cookies. It's actually FAR worse than the pain and it depresses my breathing. No thank you!
All and all, I am grateful and feel terribly blessed. I came out of it in one piece, my awesome friend "R" was with me when I got to the pre-release recovery room (rather than the O.R. recovery room) and was on the phone with my other awesome friend "V." I felt really cared for and that was just perfect.
I've spent the last few hours in bed with the most wonderful kids on the planet - my furbabies - lying around me, missing me like I'd been gone for weeks. Thank the powers at be for the innate obsession I have for animals because they've brought me more joy and given me such genuine love on a consistent basis than anything else has in my life thus far. (and I mean that in a very positive way!)
Next step.....in a 1.5 weeks, get stitches out, grab copy of surgery notes for my CCRM file along with pics of my insides (YUK!) that Dr. M sent me home with. I guess I'm good to go at CCRM at day 5-10 of my next period but I might actually wait until 2-3 periods from now.
Ever feel like you just need a little break? :)
Big hugs and kisses to my IF sisters - we have to be some of the strongest chicks out there!
I'm sterile! How could a woman who actively wants to have a child electively CHOOSE to have her fallopian tubes ripped out?! Ugh! It defies the most basic common sense and every sense of womanhood we're born with. These were my parts - happily given away to the surgeon.
Alas, I try to remember, I had to do this IN ORDER to get pregnant. What an ironic twist! My tubes were blocked and semi-blocked. My highest recorded FSH (this past May) was 22 and I'll be 42 in 3 months. Logically I know that ONLY a miracle would have found me rolling in the hay with Vince Vaughn (yummy!) whose world-champ-husky-guy-sperm could break through the semi-blocked tube, find that one-in-a-million crusty old egg that smells slightly viable, fertilize it and create Super-Embryo,
Rational enough, right?
But I still think, hey, isn't that Vince Vaughn across the street walking his dog? It's a sign you idiot - you were too radical, yet again!!!
Well, while I try to ponder what our children would have looked like, I'll report on the day's events (for educational and entertainment value):
8:30 AM. Surgery on schedule. I walk into the operating room and am blasted with U2's, Still haven't found what I'm looking for. Indeed, how prophetic! A minimum of ten people are scurrying around on cue, not missing a beat. That feels good - when they run smoothly, I feel better. I tell everyone who asks how I'm doing about my palpitations (on/off for weeks now - been checked out several times by Cardiologist 2 years, one stress echo and all good - maybe one bout with a-fib that resolved on its own but otherwise just benign PVC's - in other words normal). No matter, I'm scared shitless. I sit on the table, just over the little carved-out depression in the table which my va-ja-ja should sit directly over and begin to lie back when the anesthesiologist points to the nurse and to my ass "she's wearing underwear." I was mortified that he noticed. You see, to make matters only more humiliating for me, I got my period yesterday morning - so I had to wear a pad and it sure doesn't hold itself suspended to my undercarriage. She says "it's okay, I'll take it off." She was such a sweetheart and an angel, truly (because she wound up waiting until I was out to take them off of me - sure, everyone got to see it but at least I wasn't conscious during the "show"). They started to put warm blankets all over me - my doctor was actually shivering in the 65 degree room. Man it's cold in there! And then they slid massagers under my legs. Honestly, if I wasn't going to be put under general anesthesia (the thought of which I ABHOR!), I would liken this to an awesome spa day where ten people cater to me, talk about me, run around for me - I could get used to that kind of life; lemme tell ya, it doesn't suck! Dr. M (my Gyn surgeon, whom I LOVE!) puts a mask over my face and tells me to relax. I feel my heart going nuts and can hear it beat erratically on the monitor. I say through the mask (with what had to be real fear in my eyes) "God, my heart" and he is such a honey that he pulls his face right over mine - six inches away - and he says "yeah, I see it but listen to me, you're going to be just fine, think good positive thoughts and sleep; I promise, I'm going to take great care of you" and I wanted to cry, it was really so much in the way he said it, with such sincerity and kindness. Hey, ultimately, some things are out of even his control but I trusted his words and their timing.
And I woke up. But this time and for the first time EVER I woke up IN THE OPERATING ROOM. Wow! Big bulb lights overhead "Sky, breathe Sky, everything's fine - you did great, tubes are out, burned off some endometriosis and your uterus looks great too, I'll see you in a bit." Oh and then I tossed my cookies. I refused all pain meds from the time I was conscious. Can I just say, I don't know how people can become addicted to pain meds. I can handle roller coasters but give me codeine, percocet, vicodin - anything - and I will toss my cookies. It's actually FAR worse than the pain and it depresses my breathing. No thank you!
All and all, I am grateful and feel terribly blessed. I came out of it in one piece, my awesome friend "R" was with me when I got to the pre-release recovery room (rather than the O.R. recovery room) and was on the phone with my other awesome friend "V." I felt really cared for and that was just perfect.
I've spent the last few hours in bed with the most wonderful kids on the planet - my furbabies - lying around me, missing me like I'd been gone for weeks. Thank the powers at be for the innate obsession I have for animals because they've brought me more joy and given me such genuine love on a consistent basis than anything else has in my life thus far. (and I mean that in a very positive way!)
Next step.....in a 1.5 weeks, get stitches out, grab copy of surgery notes for my CCRM file along with pics of my insides (YUK!) that Dr. M sent me home with. I guess I'm good to go at CCRM at day 5-10 of my next period but I might actually wait until 2-3 periods from now.
Ever feel like you just need a little break? :)
Big hugs and kisses to my IF sisters - we have to be some of the strongest chicks out there!
9/4/08
35 lbs!
I must lose them! But I confess that I'm a diet quitter. I love things like sweets much, too much and I find myself slipping off the diet wagon within hours of beginning. What is wrong with me?!
And I really want to lose the weight before I am pregnant 'cause God knows I'll have more than enough weight piling on then!
So maybe now that I've outted myself, maybe now I will feel ashamed enough to be good and stick to a plan. The surgery to remove my clogged fallopian tubes is next Tuesday (Gulp! Please Mom, watch over me and make sure I get through better than new!) and I truly want to join the gym less than 2 weeks later - September 20th, that's the day.
Working out has never caused me to lose weight, that much is true. But what it does do (other than help tone my body) is to put me in a frame of mind that is committed to healthy eating and healthy living.
Here's my plan. I won't be at CCRM for at least another two months for the initial visit. Then I might wait up to 6 months or more for an egg donor match. Frankly, my criteria isn't blond hair and blue eyes and I understand the wait for that is longest so it could be much sooner for me. But if I can manage to lose 6-8 lbs/month, I could easily be down 25-30 lbs. in 5 months.
I know I would feel so much better to have this excess weight off of me at last.
So feel free to police me starting with September 20th. If I didn't join the gym, call me on it! :)
And I really want to lose the weight before I am pregnant 'cause God knows I'll have more than enough weight piling on then!
So maybe now that I've outted myself, maybe now I will feel ashamed enough to be good and stick to a plan. The surgery to remove my clogged fallopian tubes is next Tuesday (Gulp! Please Mom, watch over me and make sure I get through better than new!) and I truly want to join the gym less than 2 weeks later - September 20th, that's the day.
Working out has never caused me to lose weight, that much is true. But what it does do (other than help tone my body) is to put me in a frame of mind that is committed to healthy eating and healthy living.
Here's my plan. I won't be at CCRM for at least another two months for the initial visit. Then I might wait up to 6 months or more for an egg donor match. Frankly, my criteria isn't blond hair and blue eyes and I understand the wait for that is longest so it could be much sooner for me. But if I can manage to lose 6-8 lbs/month, I could easily be down 25-30 lbs. in 5 months.
I know I would feel so much better to have this excess weight off of me at last.
So feel free to police me starting with September 20th. If I didn't join the gym, call me on it! :)
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