Imperfect But Perfectly Possible

Tomorrow morning we’re going to Kaiser for our last IUI with them.  Hopefully our last IUI period.  As pissed as we are at Kaiser, we’re trying to just put that away somewhere and go into tomorrow’s insem with open hearts and open minds.  I hope some of you will send some thoughts or prayers or hope (or whatever the thing is that you send) our way today and tomorrow.  We’ve just got to find this baby.

Oh, Come ON

Make that TWO coworkers of mine who are currently TTC.  As we were leaving tonight, new co-worker and I were chatting and I mentioned that I am going to see L&H and baby J this weekend.  And she said, “I LOVE babies.  I am so, so ready.  We’re going to start trying in the next couple months.”  And as far as she knows, she was looking at someone who isn’t so, so ready.  And that made another little sliver of my heart fall to the floor and the waves of wind rush by my ears even faster.  And I smiled and said, “that’s so exciting!.”  But I didn’t really mean it.

The ugliest part of me was thinking, “Oh, you think it’s so easy, you have no idea.  You’re going to regret having told me this when it gets hard.”  But I really don’t want to think that way.  I truly want her to have a short, painless journey.  What I want isn’t for other people to suffer through this, what I want is for our suffering to end.  I can only just hope that the universe lets us get there soon (and maybe just a little bit sooner than new coworker) so that I can start feeling joy again for the joyful things in life.

Patience, My Compulsory Virtue

We picked a doctor at megaclinic and we feel good about the decision.  Not only did all of you vote for the factory, but Cactus told us one of her other patients is really happy with the doc she sees there.  So we made an appointment with her.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have any new patient appointments for SIX weeks.  March 16th – oh, how many days between then and now.   I have questions about frozen sperm storage and treatment that I’m going to harass them with before the appointment, but assuming they answer those well, I’m hoping this will be our last RE.

So we’ll probably have an IUI at K@iser next week then we have to decide whether to do another cycle there.  We’re leaning towards an at-home try or taking a cycle off rather than doing two more with K.  We are just so ready to be gone from there.

The huge downside to the new clinic is that their cost for every procedure and lab is just a little bit more than the other clinic we were considering.  Also, even though we don’t have infertility coverage at K@iser and we didn’t have it when we saw Dr. Gub, they did take our insurance, so we didn’t have to pay the full cost for labs and such.  Nothing at the new clinic will be covered and paying 100% of all costs is really going to add up.  Why does a stupid E2 test cost $115?!

I’m happy that we’ve settled on a doctor, but I do not feel settled.  I’m sad and angsty and impatient.  I’m angry they can’t see us sooner and I’m angry at everything else too.  My work productivity is sub-zero and I’m just feeling so run down.   Recently, Fern and I have found out about 2 people – each a co-worker of ours, but Fern’s is also a friend – who are ttc or about to start ttc.  It feels like the walls are closing in on us and I just don’t know what to do.   The highlights of my week are acupuncture and therapy – I only go to each every other week, but I look forward to those appointments in a way that seems a little desperate.  There’s nothing to do but wait, though.  So, wait I will.

Kicked While Down

Warning: this post is a big mess of a complain-fest.  I’ll summarize in the headers so you can skim if need-be.

K@iser thawed and stored our sperm wrong and P@cific won’t refund our money.
PRS reviewed our second low count claim and this time denied our refund.  Apparently, during their review of the first low count vial they discovered that K@iser had been thawing the sperm based on really old instructions (thawing for 25-30 min instead of 5-10).  They re-sent K@iser the correct instructions and refunded us our money as a courtesy because the whole thing wasn’t our fault.  Only they didn’t tell us that’s what they were doing.  As far as we knew, that vial of sperm was crap and that was why they were giving us our money back.  Fast forward to today, 3 vials of sperm later, and PRS is telling us that K@iser is still thawing the sperm based on the old procedure and is also storing it on dry ice which voids the contract anyway and so they can’t refund us.

PRS apologized for not telling us K@iser was messing up our sperm.
I talked to PRS this morning and they apologized for not telling us why the sperm was junk the first time.  They said it was a mistake on their end that no one had explained this to us.  I do wish we had known all this earlier – we might have handled things differently with K@iser or gotten out of there sooner.  Everyone’s mistakes are messing up a lot of things for us right now.

I am mad, let me count the ways/Hindsight is 20/20.
I have a lot of anger and I have a lot of blame I’m ready to throw around.  But our first order of business is to get the fuck out of K@iser.  If they can’t even defrost the fucking sperm right, I have no faith in them.  You know what else?  We had asked our RE at K@iser why the numbers were so low when we got the first low count vial.  The count on that vial was about 10 mil less than the its partner vial (same donor, same donation date) that our old RE’s office had defrosted and we, naturally, wanted to know why.  I was wondering if maybe K@iser had a different counting method or some other way to explain this huge difference.  He said I shouldn’t worry about it.  “For some reason” their clinic always gets lower sperm counts than other clinics, but women still get pregnant all the time.  I asked him if it was a different counting method.  He didn’t know.  The fact that he didn’t know what procedures the lab uses should have been a bigger red flag but I trusted him because he’s the doctor.  To me this sounds like K@iser thaws all the sperm wrong because they walk around acting like 5 mil is a normal and good count.  Oh my god, this pisses me off.  Additionally, I’ve had a bad feeling about K@iser’s storage since the beginning.  I don’t have anything to compare it to, so I don’t know if it’s normal or not.  But when they pull your vial out of the storage tank, they pull up a half-dozen or so of other people’s vials with it (they all sit together in these little baskets).  So our vial gets pulled out of the tank who knows how many times over the course of its stay at K@iser.  That just seems bad to me.

Operation abort K@iser.
Needless to say, we are getting the fuck out of there as fast as we can.  We’re stuck for this cycle because we don’t have the time to settle on a new clinic before then, but I am OVER it with K@iser.  I’m going to write them a letter and try to get them to reimburse us for the sperm they destroyed, but I’m waiting until after we do our last insem.  No need for them to hate us while Fern is getting her IUI.  Also, I’m not holding my breath on that reimbursement.

We can’t find a midwife.
All of my attempts to find a midwife have been unsuccessful – maybe midwives just don’t do IUIs in our state.  So we’re going to have to pick a clinic.  Unfortunately, all of them charge $250+ for an initial consult, so we can’t afford to shop around which sucks.  I’m going to get Cactus’ advice, though I think she mostly likes our old RE (Dr. GUB) and we don’t want to go back there.

We have to decide on a new clinic – they both have pros and cons.
So it’s going to be between,

1. a HUGE clinic that has a world-renowned RE (and a bunch of other REs).  From the website, it looks like the main location is a campus, not just an office – this is the IF big leagues.  It does have an office in our city which is good, but there’s no doubt this place is a factory.  They definitely have the best IVF rates in the area, though and Fern’s old therapist got pregnant there and was really happy with them.  One of my worries with this clinic is that they’d have us on a fast-track with medical interventions and wouldn’t entertain any of our unmedicated tries.
2. a less huge, but still enormous clinic that only has offices in the burbs.  The location would mean that I couldn’t go to as many appointments.  However, Fern’s hypnotherapist recommended them and said she’s had a lot of clients who like them and feel that they offer very individual care (this is a big plus for us).  One of the downsides to this clinic is that they have a creepy-sounding name that makes me throw up in my mouth a little. (ok, that’s not really going into the pro/con list, I’m just saying).

There’s a third clinic too that’s affiliated with the state university, but Fern feels weird about them and I haven’t been able to find much info on them.

I’ve requested price lists from both clinics and we’ll see what Cactus has to say.  But I think we’re going to end up making this decision a little blindly.  I do feel confident that either one is better than K@iser though.  I doubt we’ll have to worry about them thawing the sperm wrong.

I hope you’ll IM read again despite this long, boring post.
Sorry to rant, but it’s helpful for me to write this all out.

When Crying is Like Breathing

I’m not a big public crier, but some days…

Fern conducts the choir at a UU church and so I attend services somewhat regularly.  Every few months, they march the kids out to perform a few skits or sing a song during the service.  If ever crying in church is out of place, I’d say it’s during this children’s time when everyone is smiling and clapping and just generally feeling collective pride in the accomplishments of the youngsters.  But that is, apparently, when I like to go against the flow.

In December, the children performed a sort of xmas pageant (verrrry loosely related to xmas – it is the UU church, after all) that included a play and also Fern (who usually only conducts adults) kneeling in front of a half dozen 4-8 year olds and conducting them in some carols.  My heart could have shattered.  I cried practically every minute of the service, choking along with the hymns and carols, pulverizing a fist full of tissues, all the while trying to smile and be as inconspicuous as possible.

I discovered yesterday that these emotions aren’t just reserved for the chilly, melancholy of late December, right after the last cycle of the year has been canceled.  Yesterday the children performed a few skits during the service and they were adorable as ever and I lost it (though not as badly as I did in December.)  I think I was able to look mostly normal, I just couldn’t find the vocal strength to sing.  But I realized this: As cute as the children are – and they are extremely charming – I don’t think I was broken up over them exactly.  What got me yesterday was the mom in the front row, balancing her camera on a chair, recording every minute of the clumsy performance.  It was such an unremarkable thing, but these little moments are what make me sad and jealous.  I so deeply want to experience the mundane joys of the (proverbial) church play.  I want to help my child rummage through my closet to find the perfect shirt she can wear as a costume dress, to record every minute with too many photographs, to build structure and comfort and routine.  Because embedded in all of those everyday actions is so much love.  It’s love that you can see on the parents’ faces as they hold up the camera.  The church play might look like every church play in every town but for the kid in the oversize shirt, it’s a big deal.  And for the parents with the sore knees, it’s the main event. And I want that too.

It will be me one day, holding my son’s violin case while he eats his ice cream cone, loving every minute of my baby’s two lines in the play, marveling at the perfect clay bowl sculpted by those little hands.  But today I have to sing quietly because it’s not our time yet.

In addition to being a sad day at church, yesterday was also our 11 year anniversary, which is a joyful thing.  As depressed as we both are right now I know that I’m struggling through this with the right person.  I love how Fern holds my hand at lunch and how she carries me through each day.

Saturday Updates

Fern’s appointment with the hypnofertility clinic went pretty well.  Overall she’s glad she went but it sounds like it wasn’t ground-breaking.  Fern didn’t fall into a trance, so it felt mostly like a guided meditation.  But the trance part, apparently, isn’t a necessary part of the therapy.  Her next appointment is in two weeks and she has a cd to listen to as much as possible between now and then.  We felt better about the whole thing when we found out Cactus knows the hypnotherapist and thinks the therapy is a great idea.  Phew and yay!  Seriously, Cactus could tell us to sleep in the backyard all winter and we’d do it – her advice is extremely important to us.

Fern is thinking about writing a guest post with her evaluation of the appointment – fingers crossed!

It’s cd2 today and we don’t have a K@iser exit plan yet, so we’ll probably stay with them for another cycle.  I had a stomach-turning realization last night.  Our favorite lab tech only works on weekdays, so I went back and checked the stats on our four IUIs and found that the two lowwwww vials were on weekdays and the two not-great-but-not-too-bad vials were on weekends.  It makes me sad, but I feel like we need to get out of there.  I don’t know if P@cific is being totally honest either, but it definitely seems like K@iser isn’t treating our outrageously expensive sperm with as much care as they could.  As much as I love that lab tech, it seems like she’s not defrosting the sperm correctly.

If we can’t find a midwife or some other crunchy option, we have to decide if we should go to another one of the big infertility clinics in the area.  We don’t think we’d go back to Dr. GUB’s office so we have the choice among three other big clinics, all of which get mixed reviews on the internet.  Do you have any advice for researching these clinics (other than typing, “big clinic reviews” into google)?  Add this to the list of decisions I’m angry that I even have to make.

You are Getting Very Sleepy and Very Pregnant

We have made a very spreadsheetless, softly researched decision and I’m excited.  Tomorrow Fern is going to her first of four hypnofertility sessions.  This idea started taking shape earlier this week when Fern’s mom went to her first hypnosis appointment for weight loss.  The session went well and she also learned daily exercises she does at home to “self-hypnotize.”  Fern’s mom is diabetic and the most remarkable thing happened – starting the day after her first treatment, her blood sugar dropped by about 100 points and it’s gone down more since then.  Fern’s mom told her hypnotist (I don’t know if there’s a more official, professional name for these folks – ETA: Fern says hypnotherapist is the term) about Fern and ttc and the woman said a lot of people have luck conceiving using hypnosis.  As it turns out, there’s a major hypnofertility practice in our city.

We decided to just ask how much it costs and see if they were taking new clients.  When Fern inquired, the office told us that there was one appointment available this week and not another one until after 2/15.  So we, somewhat rashly, just decided to go for it.  Fern’s mom is really enthusiastic about the hypnosis and so she offered to give us some money towards the treatment – that helped speed along our decision significantly.

So, as I said, this is a softly researched, gut decision.  I didn’t look into anti-hypnofertility sites, only pro ones, so my data is likely pretty skewed. But the basic idea is that stress is a huge fertility blocker (a fact that is well-known) and the hypnosis works to relax your mind and break down this barrier to conception.  This seems pretty logical to me.

I think a year ago we wouldn’t have given this much thought, but when we read about it and heard about Fern’s mom’s experience, we were both really drawn to the idea.  In a way, it seems too simple and part of me is very skeptical.  But, who knows?  Maybe it’s just what we need.  I’ll update on how the appointment goes.

Have any of you tried this or heard of it before?

All I’ve Got is Spreadsheets

I like my therapist for a lot of reasons – she’s very smart and is good at helping me find solutions and coping mechanisms for problems big and small.  But last night she endeared herself to me further.  I was lamenting our donor drama and our general lack of baby after 2+ years and I said something like, “I’ve done all this work and all I’ve got is spreadsheets.”  To which she replied, “that would make a great title for one of your blog posts.”  Hah!  It’s great to know she’s thinking about my blog and how to make it more dynamic.  The funny thing is, while I mention blogging and such somewhat frequently, it’s not a constant topic or anything, so it was a little out of the blue.  To me, this says she probably reads blogs herself…?  Whatever the reason, her suggestion put a big smile on my face and let me know I was with the right person.

So, it’s true.  I am, indeed, spreadsheet rich and baby poor.  And it’s getting me down lately in a kind of nagging, heavy, pebble-carrying way.  Every day isn’t devastating but every day is a little bit harder than I want it to be.  This cycle isn’t over yet, but I don’t have too much hope for it.  We have a negative hpt under our belts as well as the knowledge that for whatever reason, we got cheated on sperm this time.  If CD1 comes, I’ll get on the phone and order us new sperm from Donor B (we decided to go with our guts on this and pick the cutey – thanks for all your encouragement).  I’ll call the RE and tell them to put the kettle on because we’re coming over.  We’ve worked our next steps out via lots of logic, lots of spreadsheets and lots of decisions.  I don’t mind doing this work, making calls, coming up with plans.  But after all this time, all these decisions, it’s so frustrating that there isn’t anything to show for it.  I’m not quitting, not stopping my excel use – not until we have a baby in our arms – but it’s hard to fight the frustration when the monthly and daily work and worry only brings heartache and it feels like the world is rushing along without us.  I think I’ve written this post before…

Frustrations

I’m trying to let this one roll off my back, but I’m definitely irritated.  I’m just not 100% sure who to be irritated with.  Yesterday our favorite nurse from K@iser called Fern and told her, now that we no longer have vials of sperm from P@cific left, we’re not allowed to use that bank anymore.  Our clinic doesn’t usually allow patients to use P@cific, but made an exception for us because we had been using them prior to starting at K@iser.  And now it sounds like K@iser is in conflict with P@cific over the sperm count and both parties are throwing giant tantrums.

This all started, I think, with the lab tech who does the blood draws and defrosts the sperm, whom we actually adore – she’s so nice and peppy and is always rooting for us.  After she defrosted our shitty sample last week, she pulled us aside and said she really shouldn’t be telling us this, but the volume she’s seeing from P@cific is poor and we should bring it up with them.  Friendly tip, that was that.

When I spoke with P@cific about it, they said that it sounds like K@iser is defrosting the vials too long and killing the sperm.  Apparently, after I spoke with P@cific, they called K@iser and accused K@iser of messing with the sample.  I don’t even know if they addressed the thawing time question, but they didn’t have nice words to say about the volume.  According to K@iser, the sample measured .2, but P@cific claims this was a .4 sample when they mailed it and K@iser messed it up? Threw half of it away? Lied?  I’m not sure, but our friendly lab tech was pissed and between her and our favorite nurse, they concluded that they should never have to deal with P@cific again.

So, naturally, Fern cried and then yelled, saying that K@iser’s pre-approved banks don’t have as many open ID donors and they have no right to tell us we can’t use them.  So the nurse relented and said we can still use P@cific, but don’t tell anyone because no one else will be allowed to use them ever again.

Good lord.

So, to wrap it up:

• I’m pissed at K@iser for making that demand of us and making my sweetie cry, and for possibly thawing the sperm wrong.
• I’m pissed at P@cific for making the absurd claim that K@iser lost half the sample then lied about it.
• I’m not sure who’s most in the wrong, but something is definitely wrong with our low numbers.  Something just feels off about this whole thing like someone isn’t telling the full truth.
• I made a few calls yesterday to try to find a midwife who would do IUIs, but no dice.
• Now I’m praying to the universe that Fern is pregnant so we never have to deal with another insem fiasco like this again (uh, also because that’s what I want most in the world).  I feel like I’m dealing with a bunch of fighting middle schoolers on the playground.

Where it is revealed that I care more than I admitted

I spent a considerable amount of time over the long weekend searching the databases for a new frozen donor, and, it turns out, I actually care about who this donor is.  In my last post I said I was over the details – give me someone who can pump out the strongest swimmers and we’re good to go.  But then I was sitting in front of the screen, looking at all these potential donors and after I made my first broad cut, all the other factors starting vying for my attention.

So now we’re in a tricky situation because we bought 5 long profiles, narrowed those down to 2 great looking donors (side note: we had to cut out our otherwise top favorite because he reported that he smokes pot “0-2″ times per week.  Now, I’m no puritan, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with smoking pot, but it’s a known motility killer and a no-go for anyone giving us sperm.  How on earth does this bank accept donors who smoke that regularly? (side note to my side note, I am, however, glad that they report this on the form, because I think if the bank said, “if you smoke pot, you can’t donate,” the smokers would just lie and say they don’t smoke and then we’d never know)) and then bought their baby pictures.  With tense excitement, we opened up the files.  Donor A was a cute little boy.  We looked at his smiling face and said, “yeah, he’s cute…a little blond maybe…but I guess he has some nice features…looks a little…all-American?”  Then click, click to Donor B and, bam!  The heavens actually opened and a perfect angel descended from the clouds into my Adobe Acrobat Reader.  Simply put, Donor B melted our hearts.  He was the cutest cutey in Cute Town.  He had interesting features, dark curly hair and just looked like he would make us a Grade A baby.  Ironically, donor B shares more heritage stuff with me – European, Jewish and donor A with Fern – welcome to the British Isles.  But A has more physical features in common with me and B with Fern, go figure.

The wrinkle (you guessed it): when I called the bank on Monday morning, we found that only Donor A had reported pregnancies.  Both donors are new and they assured us inside out that Donor B had “just hit the catalog” and so it was too early to judge him and that both donors had very similar pre-freeze counts in the upper 20s.  But it was still very disappointing news.

Last week I boasted that proven fertility was my most important criteria.  So I shouldn’t even be writing this right now…but we’re considering Donor B.  But, man, oh man, we’re not sure.  However, one thing is clear and that is that we can’t use Donor A anymore, now that we know the adorableness potential that’s out there.  We have another backup that I’m going to check the pregnancy report on, but I’m simply pining for Donor B.

Pile on top of this donor quandary the fact that it feels absolutely maddening to even be picking a new donor now, and you have the mess that is my head.  You see, we already picked a donor.  No, not Phlox, he’s just the latest.  We asked our first donor back in March 2007.  Then we asked another two in July 2007, one of whom became our donor.  When that wasn’t working out, we asked a fourth donor in the summer of 2008 and used him starting that fall for 9 months.  And, finally, we picked Phlox in the summer of 2009.  We asked these questions and weighed these problems over and over and over again.  And it feels like enough.  But it hasn’t been enough.  We need more seed.  And now we have to decide how big a risk we’re willing to take and what matters the most in this bizarre world or AI.  I thought I knew, I really thought I knew.