Musical Talent

 

I have none. I'm desperately jealous of those who do.

Open-mic nights can be scary things, but somehow a little touristy (but very cozy) Irish pub in one of the most picturesque parts of the city manages to put on a good one. A friend sings two sets every time, and man, can that girl sing. Sigh. I want her to record an album so I can enjoy her voice more than once a week.

She also kicks our collective butts at SingStar, even when she holds back.

 

Joy, all around

 

Today is my due date from the second miscarriage. I also got my period this morning from the failed IVF. Holy crap, the cramps are bad. And it's Monday. I'm trying to lose the weight I gained through this whole journey, so I can't console myself with chocolate, either.

I bought a giant, complicated knitting machine yesterday. It has more accessories and moving parts than my old Vespa. I'm going to focus on learning to use it tonight, I think (Martin has to work late, as usual.)

And maybe crack open some of the Swiss chocolate we brought back from Zürich last weekend.

 

Tears

 

The tears don't come at appropriate times: hanging laundry in what should be the nursery, seeing the neighbors' newborn, calling my cat 'my little boy', soaping my flat(ish) stomach in the shower. Instead, I have to stop my face from contorting into the 'ugly cry' while on the bus or sitting at my desk at work.

 

Thanks, everyone

 

Looks like #4 was a bust - I took an HPT this morning and it was negative. On to round #5.

 

ART cycle #4 - nearly complete

 

Beta on Thursday.

Of 11 eggs we ended up with one single viable embryo, which of course stuck to the catheter during transfer and required a second attempt.

This whole cycle has been rather craptacular. We got 11 eggs, all of which were ripe. Of those, only 4 fertilized and only 1 of the 4 passed genetic testing (polar body testing of the egg only - PGD is illegal in Germany).

To compare, last time we had 9 eggs, 7 were ripe, 7 fertilized, 2 were transferred and 3 were frozen. (No genetic testing was done).


I'm going to get back in touch with that adoption counselor.

 

2009 is kicking my butt

 

Chalk up another point against me in 2009. We had to put our cat Tibor to sleep over the weekend. Poor guy's kidneys failed - there was nothing useful to be done.

Three pregnancies and one cat lost in 10 months. Damn it.

I want a do-over.

 

Another reason I'm eating bacon on Friday...

 

I'm a former Catholic. There are many, many reasons why.

Here's a big one:
http://www.catholic.org/prwire/headline.php?ID=6395

What may be surprising to the millions of women who cannot conceive and bring a child to term is that NaProTechnology, taught by Dr. Hilgers, is nearly three times more successful than IVF for assisting infertile couples, according to the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction, a group founded by Dr. Hilgers at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha.

Infertility at the institute is treated by determining the fertile time of a woman’s cycle, as well as by using surgical techniques such as laser treatment and ovarian wedge resections.

Infertility treatment usually begins with discovering a woman’s fertile time. This can be done with the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning.

Believe what you want about faith, but don't flat out lie about science. Who honestly believes that people turn to IVF because they don't know when their fertile times are?

GAAH. And pass that bacon.

 

Good news?

It was a boy, and it was trisomy 16, the most common form of genetic defect. I was ready to say that I have a hostile womb and just can't carry a baby. Still can't rule that out, but at least that wasn't the cause this time.

Three doctors at two practices believe this is just incredibly crappy luck. If there is a different cause each time, it's easier to believe it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your kind words.

As I thought, this third miscarriage has hit me harder than I thought. But we're looking forward to our next shot at IVF, probably in 4-5 weeks. It sounds like an eternity from now...

7w6d

Third miscarriage. I don't quite know what to do with myself tonight.

D&C on Friday.

6w6d

We had our first ultrasound this morning, and I'm not very hopeful. There was a heartbeat, but it was hard to find. On the up-side, it's not small like last time. The doctor didn't measure anything, so I have no idea where we're at. He did pull out the sonogram from last time and you can immediately tell the difference.

But this heartbeat thing is freaking me the crap out.

I've got to stay away from Google. Everything I've read says that there should be a strong heartbeat by now, and that a weak one nearly always means miscarriage. A third miscarriage is going to hit me much, much harder than the other two. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that.

4w5d

It's hard to stay positive sometimes. A hungry cat was pacing on my head at 5 am, which woke me up and left me lying in bed thinking, "oh sweet elvis, I've lost my symptoms!" Which of course is silly. They are going to come and go, but it won't matter because this round IS GOING TO WORK.

I'm going to refrain about posting about the octuplets, other than to say that I don't care if the freakazoid has 14 kids - lots of people have ginormous families and sketchy support systems. I do care that the doc thought it was OK to transfer 6 embryos at once.

My current book is "Reading Lolita in Tehran", and Azar Nafizi put it so well: "It was the sort of anger one gets high on, the kind one takes home to show off to friends and family."

Beta #2...

Beta #2: 328 (doubling time = 1.81 days)

So far, so good!

Next beta: 2/16

This one is going to work. Positive thinking, positive thinking, positive thinking...

Positive Beta

104. Still to early to celebrate, but we're headed in the right direction!

A cycle without drugs (at least not many of them)

We did a frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycle this month. Three were thawed, two survived and were transferred. I'm in the two week wait. Beta is scheduled for Feb 6th.

There's been nothing to post on that front: I went for one ultrasound and bloodwork, and a week later they did the transfer. The only drugs I'm taking are oral estrogen and vaginal progesterone. No needles, constant blood testing, or daily transvaginal magic wanding.

Rather boring, wouldn't you say?

We became the live-in can openers for two 14-year-old cats just after Christmas, and one of them has decided this week that my life is far too boring. He has decided to protest Elvis-only-knows-what by peeing on the dining room table and pooping near my husband or his proxy (yesterday near his slippers, this morning on the windowsill behind the sofa where he was sitting).

What a nasty little man. Too bad for us that he's too flippin cute and we are already in love with him. Why does his teensy, cold heart not have room for two goofy bipeds?

Mr Twinge thinks they are mad because we kind of kick them around a bit when we are sleeping. A goofy biped might think that sleeping next to big feet in a small bed is not optimal. Perhaps the felines feel that we are impolite guests in their home.

I don't want to pay for more IVF psychological counseling if I don't have to (freakin expensive), but now I have to dish out for a cat psychologist. I'm literally pussy whipped.

No BloPoMo

I was all geared up to do the NaBloPoMo, until my laptop crashed again. Thank you, Vista. Plugging in a scanner should not kill an operating system.

Anyhoodle.

I met with a therapist at our fertility clinic this week. It was good. I may go back when we start our frozen embryo cycle in January.

I think I'll be going a bit Amish until then. One of my favorite bloggers, Dooce, just announced that she's pregnant with her second, and two women from my IVF forum just found out that they are having twins. As much as I'm happy for them, it makes my situation harder for me to bear.

I missed fall this year. I love the fall. Instead of wandering over to the café opposite my house to sit under a blanket and sip a hot mulled wine, I huddled in front of the TV and gave myself an electronic lobotomy. It was the easier choice for me, although Mr Twinge might see it another way.

So now I'm going to enjoy the holidays. We fly to Denver tomorrow to visit friends and then we hit Chicago on Tuesday for a week and a half with my parents and sisters. (Yeah, now that I've told my family about the whole IVF thing, I'm not worried about outing myself here so I can tell you where I'm from.)

Maybe I'll be back in two weeks. Maybe not. We'll see how it goes.

So Much for NaBloPoMo

 

I knew trying to keep up with two blogs would be too much for slacker me. But I have a good reason for going AWOL - we celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday and I was cooking a ginormous feast for 8. Sunday, Mr. and I had one of our rare fights and I just didn't feel like posting. What could I say? That we were fighting over leftovers? Because we were. And it was totally stupid.

There are big things afoot in the G household tomorrow. Again, the doocing, so I can't say exactly what. But keep your fingers crossed that it works out. And I'll explain when I can. :)

 

Negative

 

This blog seems to bring out my negativity, and if you are me, and I just happen to be me, that's a good thing. It means I get to blow off steam or write about what I am afraid of. That's why I started it, after all. I never expected that people who don't happen to be me would ever actually read it.

I have real stories; oh, do I have stories. It's a regular Melrose Place around Mr.'s office, and mine kind of resembles The Office. Maybe one day, if either of us leave our current job, I'll write about it. In the case of Mr.'s colleagues, I think it would have to involve graphics to illustrate all of the incestuous goings on. Maybe some linked bios just so you can keep track. But we can't really afford to get dooced right now.

So sorry for the boringness. But the web is full of cool stuff, like this light-emitting wallpaper I want for my bedroom. Blog therapy it is, for now.

 

Elect Martin's Tree at Ikea

Election day is finally here. I'm nervous. I wanted to vote for McCain in 2000 (I also would have voted for Colin Powell, had he run), but I'm honestly about frightened about where the country would go if he were elected today. Does he really think that Bush's tax cuts for the rich (which he previously opposed) create jobs for those lower down on the food chain? It seems to me that he sold his soul for this nomination, and if he wins then we can really usher in the new age of robber barons.

Results won't start to be broadcast until 1 am my time, so I'm going to keep busy by going to dinner with friends and then we're off to see the live show from Found magazine (http://foundmagazine.com/events). So excited - I first heard about Found via This American Life, the über-addictive radio program (http://thislife.org).

After the show, I'm going to camp out on the sofa in front of CNN and possibly BBC. (They are the only two English-language channels, and BBC shares a channel so it's only on in the wee hours. Trust me, I'd much prefer a different news broadcast over CNN drivel. I wonder if one of the German broadcasters is going to do live coverage?)

Funny aside
Martin just called. He's been picked to decorate a Christmas tree at Ikea to compete for a giant box of Christmas decorations. We entered the sweepstakes at the store... and they picked him (although we didn't know it involved audience participation - we just thought they'd call and tell us to pick up the crap).

He goes on Thursday morning to decorate - wish him luck. Although... as we were filling out the sweepstakes cards, we did ask ourselves (out loud, too) if we need/want all of that stuff. The answer was no, but we filled out the cards anyway. If he wins, we'll either have the most craptacular decorations understated Hamburg has ever seen, or we'll spend hours uploading photos to eBay. I'm thinking craptacular.

Sucks

One more day until what I expect to be the final beta. I'm taking progesterone supplements so maybe that's delaying stuff, but I still have no spotting. Weird, huh? Sweet Elvis on a cracker, I hope this won't be like the last time: everything dragged out for weeks only to come to a sucky end.