New Year, reNewed Hope - Queer Conceptions January 2010 - Page 3

[Mistral]

Originally Posted by sarahcecile

Mistral It sounds like your doc is fairly aggressive, is there any reason to indicate you needed clomid. Good luck with this cycle!

No, I ovulate on my own, she just wants to increase the odds. I'm still iffy on it

AFM: I am on CD27, 4dpo, although I think 5 or 6 dpo. We are using an KD and inseminated 3 times, I think all of the right times. According to FF 2 days before, 1 day before, and the day of ovulation. This is our second insem., we used frozen sperm a few months ago. My DH and I have a daughter conceived in the conventional way, she's 4 and amazing. When we were trying to conceive #2 we had 3 consecutive losses, and in the process of testing discovered that my DH has a chromosome inversion which results in scrambled embryos sometimes, or birth defects, etc. - so he chose to have a vasectomy. So here we are. We plan to be fully open with our child/ren's DC status, and have the identity of our KD known as soon as the babe is born. Our DD already knows that we are using "seeds given by a man called a donor to help us make a baby with Mama's ova". and she is totally cool with the idea. She just wants a sibling!

This whole journey has been amazing, but it's been over 2 years since we started trying to have a second child and it's getting old. But it looks like we timed this correctly, so I am feeling hopeful (while trying not to get my hopes up.)

Thanks for letting me share in the support here!

Sounds like excellent timing, good luck

Originally Posted by Coco99

Yes, read it and I hope that you DP is fine... that sucks about the Drs saying all that to her and then just leaving....... I had those things told to me before after a HSG test and OUCH that HURTS............

I hope all will get better for you two...

Coco

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Coco99

Hello everyone !

Well, we seem to be on the right track... finally !!! The clinic has confirmed that all our tests are in (big big saga last fall, making us have to wait 3 more cycles than we expected) and DP is now on cd 5 or 6 , expected to O on cd 13... so we are supposed to go for a OPK-timed IUI on next sunday and monday or monday and tuesday.

Can we be moved to waiting to O please ?

Its the first time for me that I will be the non-carrying partner. When we tried (in my past life lol) I was the carrying one. Now its my DP partly because my tubes are blocked and therefore its a long and costly process for me.... so it feels somewhat like a "no choice" situation and is a little bit hard on my heart. We plan on me carrying someday but inb the short term, tahts not a viable option. My DP is very sensitive to those issues so thats good... but I dont want to talk about it too much because I dont want to make her feel bad...

Anyway so we are getting on the rollercoaster and I am looking forward to getting to know you and cycling with all of you !

Coco
xxx

Fingers crossed for you this cycle

[Mistral]

I thought this might come in handy for a lot of you - http://1stresponse.com/ You can save $2 off, just click where it says, click here. Official site.

[FtMPapa]

Coco, you got it! Moved ya!

I am glad, though, that you have the option to be the non-carrying parent.



AFM - I'm having Monday off...last shot tonight, no shots or ultrasounds or bloodwork on Monday, nothing until Tuesday morning. So exciting to have a day off after all this craziness!

[Coco99]

Pttcs????

P-TTC-S that is, Pre-Trying to conceive Syndrome ???

Seems like both DP and I have been on edge this weekend... I think we are both highly sensitive, sort of like PMS, about the TTC finally starting..... Yikes !! Not that we had issues surrounding TTC per se.... but it just seemed like everything was getting to us all weekend... Geeez ! Here I am, wanting to be all zen and relax... and we are both being the complete opposite ! Maybe because we both have previous difficult experiences surrounding TTC...

Anyone experience that b4 ??

Coco

[sunwillshine]

Originally Posted by Mistral

Lyndzies – How is the TWW treating you?

Not in it QUITE yet since I don't have confirmed O yet... but gearing up for sure!

I hope your DP is doing a lot better, and I'm sorry to hear about you feeling less hopeful this cycle. Try to keep positive (easier said than done). Hopefully this cycle will be The One for you!

sarahcecile - Sending positive thoughts to you that this TWW will be stress-free, go by quickly, and end in a BFP! Glad to have you here.

Originally Posted by Coco99

we are supposed to go for a OPK-timed IUI on next sunday and monday or monday and tuesday.

Exciting! I hope this is all it takes for your DP to get knocked up. I'll echo papa's sentiments that I think it's wonderful that you're DP is willing to carry (but I can certainly understand if that makes you feel down sometimes). My DP has no interest in carrying, so one of my fears is that I'll have something "wrong" with me, and then she won't want to carry, either. Not that adopting would be a bad thing; to the contrary. But it's just not how I envisioned things. I guess we all always have to have an open mind.

Originally Posted by Mistral

I thought this might come in handy for a lot of you - http://1stresponse.com/ You can save $2 off, just click where it says, click here. Official site.

Thanks! I've used this coupon before (a few times) but I had since forgotten about it!

Originally Posted by FtMPapa

AFM - I'm having Monday off...last shot tonight, no shots or ultrasounds or bloodwork on Monday, nothing until Tuesday morning. So exciting to have a day off after all this craziness!

Enjoy the day off from craziness!!!

AFM - Still no confirmed O, but I'm thinking yesterday maybe? Today? Tomorrow? Dammit, I hope my timing was okay. Tempted to ask KD for another "shot" tomorrow. We'll see. Looks like my temp is on an upward trend, so maybe it was in fact yesterday (even though I didn't get my usual O pains until tonight, and there wasn't really a "for reals" + OPK (the one charted is a placeholder, because it was the closest to + I got... so far).

[quasar]

We still don't have any definite decision over here. I'm still charting as if we are going to do it this cycle (and trying to get on track with plan humpy hump ), but we don't have the tank here. There's always time for overnight shipping. I am still waiting on a positive OPK and a peak on the monitor. But fertility signs are starting to line up, so I think I'll O either Tuesday or Wednesday.

Coco, that's great that you're finally able to start actively trying! What's with these clinics lately messing things up and making people have to wait? As for P-TTC-S, yep, I think it happens. Our first try was great, but there were a couple tries before where things just were a bit crazy beforehand. The one time we almost didn't even try because things got too stressful. If you think about it, TTC is a huge potentially life changing event. So it's only natural to have un-zen-like feelings around the time when it actually comes to insemming. I hope that you are both able to relax a bit and make things more peaceful as the time gets closer.

Papa, Good luck with the egg retrieval! That will be so neat to see pictures as the embryos develop! Can't wait to hear how all of that goes for you. Sounds pretty promising so far.

Welcome sarahcecile!

[quasar]

I know we would probably need to ask an RE this, but I thought I'd see if anyone here knew the answer. If we did decided to go through with an embryo transfer using my partner's eggs and donor sperm, would they need to be done through an FET cycle and not a fresh cycle? I ask because I'm wondering if they would require that they go through a quarantine period of 6 months, like donor sperm would have to, since they're not my eggs and in Michigan we can't marry?

[FtMPapa]

Quasar - no, you could do a fresh cycle.

Directed donors are different from anonymous donors, according to the FDA.

The FDA does not require directed donors of sperm or eggs to go through the six month quarantine. In practice, most REs will insist on quarantining sperm but not eggs.

There's a few reasons, sperm is more likely to carry a disease, and sperm can be frozen, the fertility industry seems to ignore that it does impact the effectiveness of the sperm. Eggs can be frozen, but it's experimental, very expensive, and only done in extraordinary circumstances in certain specialized clinics.

So, long story short, you will have to do a FET cycle if you can't get your cycles in sync, or if the first fresh cycle doesn't work and you have some embryos frozen.

You can get your cycles in sync by taking birth control pills and following a drug regimen, clinics do it with egg donors all the time. You really shouldn't have a problem finding a clinic to work with you, but my completely unsolicited advice is to make sure you find a clinic that not only is queer friendly, and not only knows what they're doing with IVF, but a clinic that has a large donor egg program.

Even if you end up having to do a FET after a fresh IVF, the prevailing wisdom is that fresh is just about as good as frozen, there isn't a tremendously huge difference, any difference in outcomes is often attributed to the common practice of using the best embryos fresh and saving the next-best for a frozen cycle. The theory is that if the best were frozen, they would do just as well as the best that weren't.

[FtMPapa]

Just to add... the prep for IVF for you would be the same for a fresh or frozen cycle. For your partner, it would be the stims for a fresh cycle, but then no further prep or anything for a FET cycle.

One tiny thing you might want to keep in mind - there may be some advantages to prepping your wife for a stim cycle and then freezing and starting the prep for a FET cycle for you. You wouldn't both be messing around with your hormones and having b/w and u/s appointments all over the place at the same time.

And you wouldn't both be taking very expensive and meddlesome drugs at the same time, in your case, possibly for nothing, like if her cycle was cancelled for under or over response, or for some other reason, and you had done all the prep, only to have no embryos to transfer, that could be very ugly for you. NOt likely to happen, but something I might try to avoid. Your RE would obviously know better than I do.

[quasar]

Thanks so much for the information! I didn't realized that about a directed donor. We had gone to an RE several years ago when my partner was interested in carrying, but that RE is no longer in practice. She liked him because he actually seemed to care about trying to get her pregnant. Now, when we went to him to try to get me pregnant, I just felt like he didn't really care either way if I got pregnant or not. I'm not sure why there was such a big difference in my perception of things, but it just didn't feel right. This is what sort of turned me off from the idea of going to an RE for the inseminations and why we sought out a midwife. I also didn't want to have to go through all the testing that was necessary when I felt that my cycles were very much normal. Since then we haven't gone to an RE.

I think I just have this idea that going through IVF will take months, that it will be emotionally and physically draining to my partner and me, and that it will be exceedingly expensive (. I wouldn't mind that expense if we actually had piles of money lying around and in the end it worked out fine and it was something that my partner really needed to do to feel fulfilled. I can never really know how she feels not having a biological child. I guess I just didn't realize the importance of it for her until she wanted to hold off on this cycle. But... I'm still scared about the whole process and there are other health concerns that might need to be addressed before anything could be done.

[FtMPapa]

Yeah, Quasar, lots to think about with IVF. It sounds so simple, I'll just carry her egg, but it's really not.

Honestly, I wouldn't willingly choose IVF. It's very, very invasive. It's a very long process, lots of forms and paperwork.

I already had all the testing done before I walked into the RE consult, all the STD labs on both of us, all the hormone panels, all the physical tests, etc, etc. Still, I've had to get more bloodwork just to start, then the bloodwork every two days once you're in cycle, then the injections, then the ultrasounds, all that.

And the phone calls. It's impossible to really comprehend the amount of time IVF takes until you've done it. For example, on a normal day, not a getting started day, not a surgical day, just a normal IVF cycle day, I might have to go for u/s and bloodwork, get a call back from the nurses with directions, they leave a message, I get the message, call them back, leave a message, they get me, I get my directions. I have a question. They have to get in touch with the doc and call me back. I have to call the u/s place to make sure they got the order and to book the appointment. The nurse calls back. I call the pharmacy to switch my order. The pharmacy calls back because something's wrong with my credit card. And on and on. It's not uncommon to have a dozen phone calls in a single "normal" IVF day. It's practically a full-time job.

And the money. As a fast responder, and not taking very many drugs, I still took 3 wks of birth control, and in the past 11 days I've taken Gonal-F ($2500), Luveris ($200), Ganirelix ($400), hcG inject ($80), and I'll be taking progesterone ($100/wk) for two weeks, and then possibly 5 more. Plus the IVF retrieval itself and the transfer and looking after the embryos, and freezing any spares, that all runs around $10K - 12K. I'm not sure if you'd have to pay for ultrasounds and bloodwork, sometimes it can be covered under insurance as diagnostic, sometimes not. If I have to get a u/s on the weekend at the hospital, it's $440. One at the OBGYN during the week is $150. B/w each day ranges from $120 - 300 depending on how many tests are ordered. I've had four ultrasound and three sets of bloodwork this cycle, so that's another $1500 maybe?

And what you're talking about is basically doing a FET cycle for you, and a fresh one for her...but only one transfer. The transfer is the easy part, the ER is the most physically risky and taxing, but the rest is a huge burden.

I'm not saying don't do IVF, but make sure you go into with eyes WIIIIIIIDE open.

I'm really, really happy I had the option (eventually) to do IVF, but I'm really sad that it couldn't happen more easily for me, much earlier.

[sunwillshine]

quasar - I don't have anything to chime in about re: the IVF using your DP's womb and your eggies, but I just had to comment that I'm loving the exchange of information I'm seeing; this is exactly why I love MDC.

AFM - (as I posted on The ONE in TTC) it just freaking figures that I'd get a + OPK and temp dip this morning. I'm waiting for a text back from KD to see if we can get one more insem in. Sigh. Why does this have to be so freaking complicated. And why is my body all of a sudden O'ing later? Grrrrrr. Just when you think you've got things all figured out, your ovaries throw you a curve egg... erhm, ball. :P

he'ss say yes.... please say yes, please say yes, please say yes....

UPDATE: HE SAID YESSSSSS!!!! YAY!

[Coco99]

Originally Posted by Lyndzies

quasar

UPDATE: HE SAID YESSSSSS!!!! YAY!

Hurray for understanding donors !!

[sunwillshine]

Originally Posted by Coco99

Hurray for understanding donors !!

Seriously! I feel so so lucky and very blessed.

Now that I'm all shot up with baby juice, nothing else to do but wait. Wait for my temp to rise, wait for EWCM to dry up. Wait for a sperm to meet up w/ my egg and make itself cozy for 8 1/2 months. Tick tock, tick tock.

Strange thing after insem. I'm still having O-type pains, but now I've also got some cramping. FX that it's the spermies making their journey to where they need to be. Anyone experience cramping after a plain old IVI insem?

[FtMPapa]

Originally Posted by Lyndzies

Strange thing after insem. I'm still having O-type pains, but now I've also got some cramping. FX that it's the spermies making their journey to where they need to be. Anyone experience cramping after an a plain old IVI insem?

YES!!! I think it's the prostaglandins or something making your uterus contract.


AFM - FINALLY, we're all ready to go. Last minute crisis today - the clinic didn't have my report from my physical, the people at my doctor's office were being absolutely completely unreasonably mean and nasty.

But, I have a freezer full of popsicles and other post-op goodness, and hopefully in a few days, the clinic will have a whole freezer full of my totsicles! 16 hours to go . . . .

[sunwillshine]

Originally Posted by FtMPapa

YES!!! I think it's the prostaglandins or something making your uterus contract.

Oooh, I so hope that's what it is and it's a good thing!

Originally Posted by FtMPapa

But, I have a freezer full of popsicles and other post-op goodness, and hopefully in a few days, the clinic will have a whole freezer full of my totsicles! 16 hours to go . . . .

Eeeek! I am so completely bubbling over with excitement and hope for you, Papa! Get lots of rest and be good to yourself tonight; important work to be done over the next couple of weeks!!!!

[Monarchgrrl]

Papa- How exciting!!! Totcicles! Can't wait to hear your updates! Can you move me to the 2WW? Thanks!

Lyndzies- So happy for you that he did that! I know what you mean, too, about cramping. I said I wasn't going to obsess after insemination, but duuuuude, my body is being weird. I've had bad nausea ever since. Maybe it's just my uterus wondering what the heck this sperm stuff is.

[Mistral]

Originally Posted by Lyndzies

Seriously! I feel so so lucky and very blessed.

Now that I'm all shot up with baby juice, nothing else to do but wait. Wait for my temp to rise, wait for EWCM to dry up. Wait for a sperm to meet up w/ my egg and make itself cozy for 8 1/2 months. Tick tock, tick tock.

Strange thing after insem. I'm still having O-type pains, but now I've also got some cramping. FX that it's the spermies making their journey to where they need to be. Anyone experience cramping after a plain old IVI insem?

Fingers crossed. Swim sperm, swim, time to meet eggy.

[Mistral]

Originally Posted by FtMPapa

But, I have a freezer full of popsicles and other post-op goodness, and hopefully in a few days, the clinic will have a whole freezer full of my totsicles! 16 hours to go . . . .

May you be blessed with many totsicles!

[katharinerose]

Papa: Totsicles FTW. May your ova be plentiful and ripe for the picking, and may they lead to a bouncing baby-child in about 8.5 months.

Lyndzies: Go, go spermies go! I <3 your KD for you.

Coco: PTTCS is definitely common. I swear some cycles I'd waffle on whether or not we should try up to, oh, the day we ordered sperm.

Quasar: I wish you much peace in your decision making. Good thing Papa is so knowledgeable these days!

And to all those in the TWW!

We're chillin' in break land. Getting stuck with needles, doing some yoga, eating my veggies. The acupuncturist hooked me up with two herbal formulas today, one for during my period which is supposed to, amongst other things, eliminate the Cramps From Hell (tm), and one for after to encourage my body to O earlier. on both accounts. She's got higher-intensity "get you preggo" herbs for when we do our next active cycle, but for now we're just trying to regulate things.