Fun with IF

So I was poking around on itunes this weekend and found some pretty good IF podcasts. I thought that you ICLWers were be just as interested in these as I was so I'll describe them for you.

The one that I've listed to the most is called Creating a Family. The podcaster, Dawn Davenport is an adoption attorney and discusses issues such as endo, adoption, ART, RPL, TCM, and all things related to alternative options to creating a family. Just now I finished her discussion with Mel from about her book. It was so cool to hear the conversation that these two women had. If you want to listen it is the March 4th episode entitle "Calling all Stirrup Queens".

Just relax it will happen is done by a couple. I really like this one. First of all they have way cool British accents so that right there makes me inclined to listen. Better yet, they are truthful and sincere about their personal journey through IVF. They have one daughter and are now attempting a frozen cycle. I can't find a link to this one, so you'll have to find it through itunes if you want to listen. But I highly recommend it.

The infertility Rollercoaster is one from the guys point of view. So far I find it rather interesting. But there aren't that many episodes and it is from 2006.

There are a bunch more but I haven't gotten around to listening to them yet. But in addition to the podcasts I found some other interesting items.

Apparently there was/is a musical called Infertility the musical thats hard to conceive. I love it. What could be better than listening to people sing songs like "I've got sperm in my pocket" and "the donor dating game".

The last thing that I was found was a song by reggae artist Lady Saw called "no less a woman". Just a look at the album cover tells me that this chick knows where I'm coming from. Maybe this should be my new theme song. Or at least my new ringtone. Hopefully this video clip embeds properly so you can see what I mean.

Friends and knitting

So every Wednesday at work we have tea time.  Each lab takes turns bringing pastries, coffee, or tea and everyone socializes.  Since I returned to work I've avoided tea time.  The thought of being in a room full of people that could potentially ask me about what happened scared the hell out of me.  So I found excuses to avoid going.  

The thing is,..... tea time used to be my thing.   I loved socializing and gossiping with everyone.  I volunteered to buy the goodies for our lab and looked forward to "hosting".  I hate that even that has been taken from me.

Yesterday morning I did my best to make myself invisible but my boss found me anyway.  He asked if I was going to make the tea and I protested for about a minute until I realized that I must have sounded pretty lame.  So I made the tea and commandeered some of my buddies to go with me and surround me for support.  It was fine.  We chatted.  We joked.  We ate yummy scones.  And my knitting friend Else approached me and asked how I've been since she hadn't seen me around (she had been gone for a while when I just started showing, and came back during my leave so she didn't even know I had been pregnant).  I sort of just said fine and changed the subject to how she has been, etc.  So I survived unscathed.

Later on I ran into Else in the ladies room.  She asked me again where I had been since she hadn't seen me around so I told her that I had been pregnant and that I had lost the baby.  And for the first time, I didn't falter when explaining what happened to Lydia.  I was so proud of myself.  But looking into Else's eyes,  I could see that she was heartbroken.  She had tears in her eyes when she asked if it was something that could happen again.  So I explained to her about the cerclage, P17, and bedrest option and even managed to sound a little hopeful.  She just looked so sad.  I apologized for ruining her day.  And she said not to think that I had and that she is just amazed that any babies ever make it.    We hugged briefly and she when she left she thanked me for sharing with her.  I thanked her for understanding.

I don't know.  From her words I just got the feeling that she really knew what I was talking about.  Like she may have had a similar experience.  She is in her late fifties, a frickin awesome speed knitter, and she and her husband have no children.  And I've heard her make comments during the knitting group like "nope, no kids for me" while quickly shaking her head.  I always just shrugged it off.  Now I wonder.  Her response to my story really touched me.  She is the only person besides you guys who has wondered about next time around.  No platitudes.  No one-upping my loss with some other more horrid loss.  And no just assuming that things would be fine once we tried again.  So many people have said "you guys are so young", "at least you know you can get pregnant" and 

crap like that not knowing my history.  She didn't do this.  Why??  Well I guess it doesn't matter.  I'm just glad that I've told yet another person and survived.   And I'm glad that I was able to go to tea time and have fun.  So all the anxiety isn't worth it.  

I can do this!!  

And I can knit.  I started this project as a way to relax and bide my time.  I always loved knitting but I have found it to be extremely soothing to my psyche even more so lately.  This scarf is going to be a birthday present for my best friend who is coming to visit from NYC at the end of the month.  I hope she likes it.   The pictures don't really do it justice.  I made this same alpaca scarf for myself (in forest green) and wear it all winter long.  I love it, and it thought that if I knit it in black then my bff would love it too.  The scarf has a fancy ruffled edge (which you can sort of see in the first image) and a cool herringbone stitch (you can sort of see this in the second image).  

Because it is a skinny scarf, you can use one skein of yarn.  And it calls for largish needles so it knits up quick.  

It isn't me!!!

I knew I'd find out soon but didn't expect it to be this soon. The fish dream (see post below if you have no clue what I'm talking about) was about my older brother. Apparently he forgot how to properly use a condom. My other brother told me the news last night. I told him that I was just going to try to block this knowledge from my memory. But of course I can't. This baby, this sweet innocent child is a result of a fling. A fling!!! I would like to say I'm surprised but I'm not. This means my older brother now will have 3 children. One he takes care of and is in our lives. My beautiful nephew Dominic. His daughter we haven't seen since she was about 1. Her mother hates my brother and banned him from her daughter's life, and thus banned her from our lives. And now this baby. I'm pretty certain that s/he is not going to have a role in my brother's life. He can't stay in a relationship (monogamy issues) and he can't financially support another child. He just barely gets by paying child support for Dom. I hate this! It isn't fair that he should get to have another baby and mine is ashes on my mantle.

Fish Dreams

So this morning over the phone my mom tells me how she has been having fish dreams for a while now and she wonders who is next.Let me explain that when a woman in my family dreams about fish, someone ends up pregnant.  It always happens.  My grandmother dreamt when all of my aunts were pregnant and knew before they did.  No joke.  And when I was in college my grandmother had a fish dream and my parents went crazy thinking it had to be me because I was the only female "old enough" to get knocked-up.  Well obviously it wasn't me. My younger cousin.  She now has 3 kids.  

So I told my mom that I couldn't guess who it was and wanted to just leave it at that.  But then she started in with.... "you never know, it could work naturally this time for you".  I just said no firmly and changed the subject.   Is my mom just being hopeful.  Or just being a pain in the ass.  Either way I can't stop thinking about it. Why not me?  Is it possible that my mother could be predicting a future pregnancy for me.  I doubt it.  I'm guessing another cousin is pregnant.  I'll let you all know what I find out in a month or so.  

But just maybe my mother's signals are crossed and she is just dreaming of my water dog who pretty much acts like a fish.  

Here is a picture of him dripping wet during our trip to the beach.  And just to give you are taste of summer in San Francisco...... 

Yes that little girl is wearing a wetsuit!And check out the fog.  That's K and Bailey in the distance.  Except they weren't that far away from me.  The fog just made it look that way.

Aches and Pains

So in addition to all my emotional stuff it seems like my endo is back with a vengeance. So much for acupuncture! I started my period last weekend and it was fine at the beginning. Not to heavy, no cramps. But then Sunday hit me like a ton of bricks. It was so painful. The odd thing was that the pain seemed to be centered on my right side. And not low. Higher up close to my navel. I started feeling hot and uncomfortable and took my temperature. 99.7. Not really a fever but close. I started freaking out about possible appendicitis and ended up going to the ER after checking in with the nurse line. And here is where my life starts to resemble a situational comedy.

As we decide to go to the ER, K takes Bailey out to let him pee since we don't know how long we'll be gone. And poor Bailey gets stung by a bee on his left paw. Our poor baby was whining and wailing. Bailey wouldn't let K look at his paw. He let me look, but with my sore belly I couldn't really angle myself to get out the stinger. So K ended up dropping me off at the ER and then took Bails to the vet. It was totally crazy. Poor guy. Poor dog. Poor me. We are such a sorry group.

Well after a pelvic, and a CT scan that somehow took 8 hours to complete, they concluded that the pain was caused by the endometriosis growing on new parts of my abdomen and leaving little pools of blood in various places. Awesome. So now I have internal bleeding. At least with this type of bleeding the body just reabsorbs it somehow so no surgery or anything of the sort will be needed. They sent me home with a prescription of vicoden and a really sore arm (from all the vials of blood they drew and the IV).

Bailey had a much easier time. He did have to wait an hour to be seen, but the vet techs just held him down forcefully and took out the stinger with a tweezer. They didn't even charge K for the service. We had given Bails a benadryl before we left the house so he was a little sleepy and thus easier to deal with. The techs thanked us for that.

So yesterday I explained to my acupuncturist what happened and she is all up in arms about how I really have to cut out sugar and wheat gluten from my diet because these are adding to the endo. And she would like me to do herbs but I can't since I'm on the pill now and Dr. W. does not allow herbs to used at the same time as meds. So I'm going to try this crazy elimination diet to see if the wheat gluten is really a problem. I'm not excited about this. I've already given up shellfish (no big deal for me), dairy (way bigger deal), and chicken (frickin huge deal) and I still have little pools of blood in my belly. All I know is if this stuff doesn't help with the endo pain for my next period at least now I have the vicodin. And all this crazy dieting is going to help me get wicked skinny because what have I got left to eat besides fresh fruits and veggies. Le sigh.