to pee or not to pee

I broke down tonight and bought a 2 pack of F.irst R.esponse pregnancy tests tonight.  The box has been staring me down, teasing me to rip it open and take the test now now now!!  But I’m strong and holding out.  Although….I may give in to test tomorrow morning, I have yet to decide.  I just don’t know if I can hold out until Friday. I’m eager to get positive results, not so eager for the negative. The good news is that I have arranged for Friday off, so I can either celebrate or wallow in self pity once I get the results.

In other news, I never heard back from the clinic on whether my embryos made it to blastocyst, but I’m guessing they didn’t since we just received our finalized bill in the mail which did not include the cost for cryopreservation. That’s disappointing because I had really expected to have at least a couple to freeze after fertilizing so many embryos. What a waste! I’m a little confused, too, because my clinic said that not many of their patients (about 10%) have embryos that will make it to blastocyst. But I’ve read online much better statistics for other clinics…some even say they wont do a transfer unless it’s a blastocyst transfer! I trust my clinic that they do a good job (they are ranked top 10% in the nation and have a 40% success rate for live birth according to SART statistics), but it just seems like they would have a better rate of growing the embryos to blastocyst. It may have something to do with the culture they use, but of course I’m only guessing since I know very little on how that works. If anyone has any info in this area, please feel free to share.

Okay, so in a completely off topic discussion not related to infertility, Mike and I have decided to get a puppy! We’ve been talking about it for a long time (years actually), and we’ve finally decided it’s time. We’re waiting until after Christmas since we’re flying to California to see my family, but hopefully we’ll have our new puppy in January. It’ll be like a birthday present for me (my birthday is January 8th). We’ve decided on a Labrador Retriever since they are supposed to be really good with children and pretty easy going. Mike wants a chocolate one, although I think they are all cute! We don’t have any pets now, so we’re starting to do some research on how to train a dog and looking into what we need to buy for the house. I know it will be a lot of work, especially in the beginning raising a puppy, but I’m really looking forward to bringing home an addition to the family.

Alright, that’s all I have. I’ll update tomorrow on whether I went through with the test (and of course the results). Although I might need some cheering up if I post negative results, so be prepared with comforting words.

heart-to-heart

Lately I’ve felt so stressed out and tense, so taught that I could snap at any minute.  After I found out the results of the ultrasound and the canceled doctors appointment, I was disappointed, but not surprised.  Then Mike’s follow up with the urologist got canceled.  Ok, that sucks, but we’ll reschedule, right?  Yet Mike still has not been able to reschedule.  He left a message – no return phone call.  The next day, no return phone call.  When I found out he hadn’t bothered calling again, I almost had a breakdown.  I don’t like myself like this.  I knew I was overreacting, but I couldn’t help it.  My chest felt so tight, and I just stared at my computer for about 10 minutes trying to calm myself down.  Finally, I was able to distract myself enough to calm down, and I dropped it.  I didn’t want to get in a fight over the issue because no good would come from it.  But it started making me question whether Mike really wanted to get to the bottom of our problems – and if he even wanted to have a baby!  These thoughts kept flying through my head, so I deliberated on them over a few days before I realized something….I had never asked Mike if he wanted to go through with IVF. 

Ever since the doctor told me that we would most likely have to do IVF w/ ICSI, I just accepted it.  That day I came home and told Mike the results, and I thought that was that.  When Mike kept reminding me that he still had more tests that could be done, I acknowledged it, but I never expected any real results.  So while the ultrasound was disappointing (only because of the lack of knowledge), I wasn’t all that surprised.  But everytime I mentioned IVF, Mike would brush it off.  I usually just ignored it and kept going forward with my plans (at least in my head).  He even made a comment at one point saying that he didn’t understand how people could put themselves through the emotional rollercoaster.  Although that did make me pause for a moment, I brushed it aside.  I never stopped to consider the fact that the decision needed to be mutual.  That we would both be going through this emotional rollercoaster, and it needed to be a decision that we made together, not just mine.  And to tell you the truth, I realized that I was afraid to ask him, because I didn’t know how I would handle it if he told me that he wasn’t willing to go the IVF route.

 I’m not very good at bringing up emotional subjects that put me in a vulnerable spot, but I knew this one was important.  I broached the topic with him when we went to dinner the other night at the little mom and pop Italian restaurant across the street.  And for the first time, I asked him what he thought.  He explained to me that the thought scares him.  That we could invest so much time, money,energy and emotion for something that may or may not work.  At best, we may have about a 50% chance of conceiving.  While that sounds great compared to 0% naturally, it’s still a lot to risk for a maybe.  We’ll be going into debt and having our lives consumed with it until we get pregnant.   He explained that it’s not that he doesn’t want to do it, but that he just didn’t want to let his mind go there unless it was absolutely necessary.  That I can understand.

I explained to him that the thought scares me that I may not be able to have a child of my own.  It scares me to the point that if I let myself think about it, I start crying.  I am in no way in a rush to have a child, but the thought that it could never happen terrifies me.  So the decision of whether or not to do IVF if it’s necessary is not even a choice for me.  I don’t care if it’s 50%, or 25%, or 10%.  I have to give it a shot.  If in the end it’s just not succesful, I’ll have to figure out what to do next .  However, that’s one point that I won’t let my mind go to.  So I can completely understand why Mike feels the way he does.

We ended up agreeing that we will give IVF a shot if it comes to that.  We don’t know how many times, we’ll have to decide as we go.  But we made the decision together, and a lot of my stress has been relieved.  I’ve heard of marriages ending over the stress of this kind of thing, and I do not want this to come between us.  Having a baby together is supposed to be one of the most wonderful things that can happen between us, and when it eventually happens, I don’t want it tainted with arguments over getting there.

healthy lifestyle

I know this blog is supposed to be about infertility/parenting, but there is a lull in things to write about while we’re waiting on Mike’s next test results. So…I’ve decided to share a little something about myself.

A while ago, I posted that at my first visit with the RE, Dr. R told me that she thought I was too thin and proceeded to act as if I didn’t eat. This bothered me a lot, because I try to maintain a fairly healthy diet. I’ve always struggled with my weight, more mentally than physically, and I’m now at a weight that I am mostly happy with.

I was always very thin when I was a kid, and remained so through junior high. In fact, I remember a time when I could eat ice cream every night – my mom would buy me a carton every week, and I would divide it up for the week. No one, not even my friends, were allowed to touch my ice cream! We didn’t eat very healthy in my household – our “homemade” meals consisted of tuna helper out of a box (really, I used to consider that homemade). TV dinners were common meals for us. My mom would cook for us on the rare occasion, mainly when her boyfriend at the time decided to join us for dinner, which was often in the beginning and then became the rare occasion (which was fine with me, but that’s another story for another day). Most nights were what I like to call “fend for yourself” nights. So my concept of healthy eating was way off – I didn’t know the first thing about how calories, fat, and carbohydrates played a role in my weight.

While my metabolism is pretty good, my body couldn’t keep up with the crap I was feeding myself, and by the time I was 18, I weighed 155 lbs. I suppose in comparison to others with weight problems, 155 lbs is not that bad, but it was a lot for me.

I joined the Navy when I was 19, and bootcamp helped me drop a lot of that weight. After 2 months, I was down to 140 lbs, and I’d replaced a lot of fat with muscle. I felt really good about myself for a while, but after bootcamp, my unhealthy eating habits quickly caught up with me, and I put the weight back on.

I finally decided to do something about my eating habits when I was 20 and I joined Weight Watchers online. Weight Watchers was the best thing I ever did for myself. It not only helped me lose weight, it taught me how to eat healthy. I started discovering how to cook fresh foods, and over the years, have discovered that I love a variety of foods I’d never had growing up – especially bell peppers (yum)! I absolutely love finding new recipes, and have several cookbooks. I’m 24 now and weight about 115 lbs. My husband still doesn’t believe me when I tell him I used to weight 40 lbs more.

Most people look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them that I eat Weight Watcher meals. The truth is, some of the best meals I’ve ever had are Weight Watcher recipes. People look at me and see that I’m thin, and they assume that I can eat anything I want without gaining weight. They ask me why I even bother worrying about my weight. My response is that I don’t “worry” about my weight, I just try to eat healthy.

“Diet” has unfortunately become an evil word for many people. But it’s just a way of life. Everyone has a diet, whether good or bad. The problem is that so many people think that a diet should be short lived, just long enough to drop a few pounds, and then they go back to their old way of eating. Maintaining a healthy diet is hard, and it can take years to fully change your eating habits. One of the hardest obstacles to overcome is to stop eating fast food. It’s readily available, cheap, and “good” (I’ve lost my taste for fast food, but I remember how much I used to love it). But one meal of fast food is generally someones calories for the entire day. I still eat unhealthy foods on occasion, but since my diet consists mostly of fresh, healthy, low-fat foods, it’s okay for me to splurge every once in a while and not feel guilty.

I don’t follow Weight Watchers point system anymore because I’ve adapted the diet to my way of life. I found that I can eat whatever meals I want as long as I replace fatty foods with the low fat versions, and I balance the meal with all the nutrients. One of the biggest things I’ve found helps me maintain my weight is portion control – I rarely go back for seconds. I also do not heap my plate with food. If I feel like going back for more after my first plate, I force myself to sit there for a minute to determine if I’m really still hungry or whether I’m just eating because it tastes good. This has helped me deter myself from seconds several times.

Every week I sit down and plan out the meals for the week. I pull out all my cookbooks and flip through them to find meals that sound good for the week. My husband and I have been doing this for 4 years, so we have about 30 meals we usually rotate through, but I try to incorporate 1 new meal every other week. When I go to the grocery store, I only buy what is on my list. We don’t keep junk food in the house, so for snacks I buy reduced-fat Wheat Thins and low-fat popcorn. I’m sure there are probably many other healthy snacks as well, but these are out favorite.

Mike and I cook together almost every night (we allow about one night eating out per week). I absolutely love cooking with him, and I find that it gives us time to spend together for at least an hour before I go off to blog or do homework, or he goes to play on his computer. We also sit down together at the table to eat instead of eating in front of the TV. This is one thing that I look forward to when we have a son/daughter, the three of us cooking together. I hope for it to become a sort of tradition for our family that our child can pass on to their children, and so on. It’s nice to dream, right?