Mummy/Mommy/Mama = Aussie/American/Malteaser...

A Star is Born!!

2009-09-18T19:52:00.013+10:00

Just a quick one to let you know that Noah was born by emergency c- section on Sunday due to antepartum haemorrhage. Luckily Kim was already in hospital because she woke up the Tuesday prior with a small bleed so she was admitted. Then they discovered that Noah was small for dates due to placental insuffienciency. He was only measuring 24 weeks when we were 27 weeks!!! Kim was admitted and put on strict bed rest with a plan to have a doppler scan every 2 days to measure the blood flow through the cord and a growth scan every 2 weeks. Luckily our Dr decided to give her two doses of steriods just in case. We made it to 5 days and she started to bleed profusely so it was off to theatre in a hurry.

Everyone is well, Noah is in NICU but he is a TROOPER!!! Born on 13/09/09 at 27+4 weeks, 750gms (or 1pound 10 ounces!!!!!!!!) with apgars of 6 and 9. They intubated him for the first 11 hours of life only to get him settled in NICU and get his umbilical lines in etc, but they didn't need to because he kept wanting to pull out the tube because he was breathing on his own! He was so feisty that they took him off the respirator and put him on Cpap instead. They have never had a baby this young on Cpap alone, so they dont have nasal prongs small enough for him, so they are stretching his little nostrils! He hasn't needed any oxygen since birth and he is on day 5 today! He is currently on 2 hours off cpap twice a day and his oxygen saturation is between 95 and 100% all the time!

We are so pround of our LITTLE bundle! Will update when I can, as you can imagine life is hectic at the moment! I'm keeping the ticker up so we can see when he is considered term, the closer we get to term the sooner he can come home!

For more news go to http://star-is-born.blogspot.com/

25 weeks (and a bit...)

2009-08-29T15:14:00.003+10:00

We have kicks!!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!! Been waiting forever for kicking, what with this anterior placenta and all!! I have felt them a couple of times now and Kim got two big kicks and a roll over last night! Getting really excited about Noah being here in less than 15 weeks!

Poor Kim has had nearly every pregnancy condition so far: morning sickness, sore boobs, a bleed, thrush, pregnancy rhinitis (causing a post nasal drip and very sore throat - lucky i work for an ENT specialist), a hemorrhoid, irritable bladder, painful braxton hicks contractions, round ligament pain, indigestion/heartburn etc. We had our 24 week OB appt and heard the heartbeat again so that was reassuring considering at that stage we didn't feel the baby moving.

So if the first trimester and the second trimester are anything to go by, i am hoping that the third trimester we only get minor pregnancy related conditions. We have to hope not to get gestation diabetes, IUGR, pre-eclampsia, premature labour, group b strep, anemia, and hope for only backaches, shortness of breath, varicose veins, stretch marks just to name a few. Can only hope for the less worrisome ones huh!

And just because photos are so fun... 20 weeks!!!

2009-07-25T12:00:00.001+10:00

Some nursery items....

2009-07-25T11:28:00.005+10:00

Although we are moving house at the beginning of September, i thought i would share what we set up in the nursey so far. It isnt set up beautfully yet as it is temporary and we have to dismantle the cot to get it out of the room, but in truth the act of setting it up was pretty exciting. I have some wall decals to put up that match the bedding and we cannot wait to set it all up permanently at the new house. As you can see we have already so many clothes that we are stopping unless we see something we absolutely must have!! Now to get started on sewing some nappies now i know that we are having a baby boy!! We have his name picked out already.. His name will be Noah.

Its a ......

2009-07-15T22:17:00.004+10:00

WE'RE THRILLED!!ALL HEALTHY AND ALL BOY!!

16 weeks today...

2009-06-24T12:33:00.002+10:00

Had our OB appt and yes we heard the heartbeat 150bpm - perfect! Was a quick appointment although she got weighed, blood pressure done, went through all her blood tests and everything is right on track! She isn't anaemic so she doesn't need an iron supplement which is good because Kim complains enough about being all blocked up!! So now all we have left to do in the next 3 weeks until her 19 week scan....is grow!!

15 weeks today...

2009-06-17T12:43:00.007+10:00

Well not much happening still. Kim complains of sore nipples and some nausea at night time after dinner and thats about it. She seems to be expanding a little bit according to how tight her pants are but nothing dramatic. She hasn't started wearing the maternity jeans that we bought and she hasn't ordered maternity pants in her uniform for work either. Her pigmentation is darkening and that line on her belly is becoming more noticeable. Might be coming in earlier because she is so olive skinned. We have an ob appointment next week on Tuesday, where we hope we are able to hear the baby's heartbeat!! That should tide us over until the next scan which is booked for 15th July at 19 weeks!!!

As for the nursery... All the things we bought for the baby are still in their plastic wrappers and packed away in the cot. The changetable mat still in its plastic and is sitting in its place on the changetable beside the cot. Inside the cot is a mattress in its plastic, a bouncer, a carseat, baskets for under the changetable, manchester, a hug-a-bub carrier, a roll of custom made wall decals i had made to match the manchester, then there is the pram in the wardrobe. I have my eye on a baby bath but am waiting for it to go on special before i buy it and then we have left getting a high chair for when Kim's parents come over from Malta in Febuary next year to meet the baby. They wanted to buy something for the baby so we figured that seen as how we have bought everything else they can buy that if they like.

I bought a whole heap of short sleeved no legs onesies on special for $2.50 each from Best and Less because the baby will be born in the height of summer. So a nappy and a singlet will be the order of the day and I figure onsies will be good so you dont have to pull the singlet down all the time. I didnt want to buy too many clothes as i am sure we will get alot for presents because we have bought everything else!! If people ask us what we need i am going to tell them.. clothes all sizes, baby wraps and manchester. Because you cant have too much of any of those!!

14 weeks today...

2009-06-10T18:48:00.003+10:00

I can just see that I am going to forget to post on the exact day and this 12, 13, 14 weeks today will become 15 weeks yesterday or 16 weeks the other day!! Oh well I have kept it up for 3 weeks so far!! Not much happening. Not much happens between week 13 and week 14. Just so you know. No scans, no OB appts, no blood tests. Nausea remains a tiny bit at night time and tiredness makes Kim's bed time at the latest 8.30pm. But otherwise, ho hum.............. (really I am glad for the boringness, no more excitement needed here).

13 weeks today...

2009-06-03T08:13:00.007+10:00

We ended up going for the scan but just a general wellbeing scan. The baby was measured 12w2d but we know we were 12w5d at the time and sono's can be out +/- 3 days anyhow so we aren't worried. There was no sign of any hematomas and the heart rate was great. The baby has a normal brain and skull with nasal bone present and two arms and two legs etc. We declined the offer of nuchal translucency measurement, looked fine anyhow, and we didnt have the blood test to look for anomalies. Our OB was right, the sono guy does take crap pictures. But i'm putting one up anyway. Hehehe... He or she looks like Homer Simpson in this shot. If you are into nub shots, I personally think this one makes it look like a girl. Although the last one looks like a boy. Kim wants a boy but we will be happy either way of course.

12 weeks today...

2009-05-27T22:22:00.007+10:00

This is our baby at 12 weeks. We had our first OB appointment and everything was great. The OB had a good look at the baby then printed this photo just as the baby was rolling away so it looks a bit funny, but you get the general idea.

Dr K asked us to seriously think about whether we really wanted to do any testing. He basically said you are well and truely pregnant, everything looks really good, there is no huge nuchal translucency, so do you really want to worry yourselves for the next 10 weeks or so or do you want to enjoy this pregnancy?

He said if we want to go to the races and get bookies odds on the baby having down syndrome then have the blood test and the scan. But if we want a real answer have an amnio. Then he said that if we decide to have an amnio we have to decide first if we would terminate the pregnancy if there were anything wrong. The answer was no. So no testing.

Instead we are going to spend the rest of this pregnancy being "Happy". Next OB appointment is in 4 weeks time at 16 weeks and we will be able to hear the heartbeat with the doppler and listen to our baby. So 4 weeks til we listen. Then another 3 weeks after that we get to see the bub again at the big 19 week scan!!

If a picture is worth a thousand words...

2009-05-13T08:01:00.004+10:00

Cheated...

2009-05-11T19:29:00.002+10:00

On saturday night we were at a friends birthday party and kim came and told me she was bleeding. She said she felt a gush and went to the loo and her underwear was soaked with blood. It was 11.30pm but i rang our lovely Dr H in the middle of the night and he said there wasnt much we could do about it but to go to bed and come in early in the morning.

So kim changed and put a pad on and in the morning there was only one spot of old blood on the pad. We went in fearing the worst. First he had a look at the cervix which was still closed. There was a little bit of brown on the speculum but no bright red blood. Next the scan. We saw the baby moving around and the HB was good. Doc said he could see a little bit of blood near the cervix in the womb and that it may work itself out eventually, but that everything still looked good.

We have no idea where the blood came from. His little ultrasound machine isnt a big diagnostic one, so we dont really know if there is a subchorionic hematoma there or not. But the good news is that there has been no bleeding since. It was just that one gush and then it stopped totally. Hopefully it was just a burst blood vessel. The placenta is still fully joined as far as we can tell and the baby was moving about alot and moving its little arms and legs and head.

We had an appt for another scan tomorrow anyway, so we are still going back for that in the morning, for reassurance and to check on the baby. Looks like this pregnancy is going to send me grey... Our last pregnancy ended in M/C at about 7 weeks after a small bleed at 5.5 weeks. This bleed was way more. Am frightened and scared that this pregnancy will be complicated from now on...I feel so cheated not being able to relax and enjoy this pregnancy. How can this be happening to us again...

&*^$# City...

2009-05-06T17:24:00.004+10:00

Everything is going good so far, 6 days until the next scan, checkout the ticker will you, that is more like a little bubba now, even if it is only about an inch long! Now I am about to go to the copshop and report my girlfriend missing, because she left about two weeks ago and hasn't come back, instead I have some real "bitch" living with me who resembles my girlfriend, but man the attitude...so it can't possibly be my Kim.

I don't know if it's the hormones, the interrupted sleep from peeing so much, the sore boobs, the nausea every night, the fact she can't get comfortable in our bed anymore, but holy cow, she has turned on me. I can't do anything right ... Hopefully she gets to have a great 2nd trimester, because she reckons the first one sucks so far (lets not tell her too much about the 3rd trimester yet)!!

Learning to exhale ... a little bit...

2009-04-27T11:48:00.001+10:00

Well we ended up going to our original viability scan appointment with Dr H. Just got back and we are AOK!! The baby is measuring right on track and the baby looks chubby and healthy and happy!! Well i imagine it that way LOL!!Heartrate is great and we are thrilled. I was anxious +++ but it was worth going in because the baby looks so cute in there, big head and chubby belly, nice big yolk sac still, nurturing him or her!!

Dr H even said that we can come back in 2 weeks and have a little ante-natal visit with him because our first OB appt isn't for a month and he said "thats a long time between viewings"... have to take a pee sample with us and kim has her blood pressure taken etc... and a quick scan... so we set that appt for the 12th May!! Bout time I had a 100% positive report huh!!

Still AOK...

2009-04-22T08:08:00.004+10:00

Everything is still fine. Kim still has sore boobs and feels sick each afternoon and evening. Kim called Dr H the day after the hospital trip and told him they found the baby and that everything was ok. He was so happy. He said that we didnt need to come back in for another scan now that we've seen a heart beat and that he would post us the forms for the triple screen blood test and the ultrasound. He said to book the ultrasound around the 1st of June and have the blood test a few days before that. Which means we will be 12 weeks 2 days when we have the blood test and 12 weeks 5 days when we have the scan.

Thing is our first OB appt is on the 26th May. Do we postpone the OB appt until after we have the tests? I'll give our OB a call and ask them. Oh god another 5 weeks and 5 days until we see our baby again and know that everything is alright!!

Heart Attack Material...

2009-04-17T10:56:00.005+10:00

Warning: the following could cause chest pains. Well it did in my case. You see Kim had started having really bad pains in her right side ovary area, so we went in to see our Dr H and he did a scan. Firstly he could see lots of big cysts/follicles on her ovaries and he said that is fairly normal after IVF. Next he could not find the gestational sac. He really looked and looked for ages but could not find anything. NO GESTATIONAL SAC!!

So he ordered a HCG test and we left with his diagnosis of either a nonviable pregnancy or an ectopic pregnancy. Of course while I was waiting for Kim to get blood drawn I bawled my eyes out in the clinic and then got dragged off for a chat with the nurse, who was really nice and everything but couldnt tell us why he couldnt find the baby.

So we went to my mums and waited for the phone call about the HCG levels. After much googling we came to the conclusion that either it was too early.. doubtful when most people see a heartbeat at 6w1d or it was an ectopic or a nonviable pregnancy.

Then we got the phone call to say our HCG was 9230 and pretty much right on track. So back to thinking maybe ectopic. But her progesterone was too high at 266 for an ectopic, he said he would expect it to be low. So we were asked to go back for a scan on monday to see what is happening.

Anyway i could not handle it. I felt sick to the stomach. Kim was just zombied. In the end we went to the Emergency Room and they ordered a full diagnostic ultrasound. It took about 3 hours of waiting but eventually we got in for the scan.

We had this really nice lady do the scan and although she firstly took a long time looking at the cysts and follicles on the ovary etc, finally she got to the gestational sac where it should be!! After a while she found a yolk sac and then a baby with a heartbeat!!!.

So everything is fine. No bleeding. No Subchorionic Hematoma. No ectopic. One baby with a heartbeat and everything is fine!!!!!! Thank god for that. Ended up being our fertility specialist not having the best ultrasound machine, being very good at making babies but not being that good at looking for babies!!!

We cannot tell you how relieved we are. Now to get past the next 6 weeks. But today we are 6 weeks 2 days and we have one baby with a heartbeat that we are so grateful for. Never been this far before. Now I have to get ready for work and let my boss know because she got a phone call yesterday from me crying and saying it was either ectopic or no baby anymore and that there was no way I could not come back to work that afternoon. I think she will be as relieved as we are almost. She is a great and very supportive boss luckily. She has had twins herself. At least she can stop teasing me about twins now.

Half way there...

2009-04-15T07:29:00.008+10:00

Well we made it to six weeks without much drama... So we are half way to the magical 12 week mark. Kim still has some nausea...n ot the same amount or intensity everyday but some each day. Her boobs are still killing her so thats good...hehe... She has pains in the uterus area often. She says they are like stretching cramps. Not period pains, but similar. I hope this means that her uterus is just expanding like all the mad googling weve done and by what Dr H says. But no blood. No brown spotting. Nothing. So we can thank the heavens for that.

Kim rang Dr H yesterday to ask his opinion about the pains... he said that as long as it wasnt always on one side and that there was no blood, that it was completely normal. The ovaries get a bit of a knock around during IVF and also the uterus is expanding etc. He said to give him a ring on Friday and let him know how we are and if we are still concerned he will move the first ultrasound forward.

I mean we should be able to see the heartbeat by now anyway, but I guess anything can happen between 6 weeks and 12 weeks....I suppose the longer we leave it the bigger the baby will be and the more viable the pregnancy will be. The anxiety is killing me. Kim is trying to calm me down saying everything will be alright, but I wont feel better until the baby is here. So do I have this anxiety for the next 34 weeks or does it never end for a parent. Will I be in this state for the next 50 years or so or how ever long I live??? I say "I" because Kim is fine...cool as a cucumber as per usual...imagine the panic in this house if it wasn't for her.

Poked, not in the Facebook way...

2009-04-10T07:26:00.007+10:00

Well everything is going good. Kim has had some nausea for the last few afternoons/nights. Her boobs are still killing her and hurting more and more everyday, so thats a good sign. She had lots of stretching, stitch like pains on both sides in the first week, but that seems to have subsided at the moment. We have 17 days until our first scan. We are 23dpo. Last time she started spotting at 25dpo. So we are trying not to think about that to survive this stage....

I have a confession to make. I poke Kim in the boobs when she is asleep just to check they really are sore and that she is not faking it to please me... Yes i do that, i am a cruel bitch. I mean i only gently prod them until she says ooowwwww. Then i'm happy and i roll over and go back to sleep.

We got our cot and changetable yesterday, they are already set up in the nursery. We packed the carseat and the bouncer and the baskets for the changetable packed with manchester into the cot. Everything is still in its plastic covers for now to keep the dust out. We set up the cot and changetable to air out the smell of the woodstain.. Well thats our excuse and we're sticking to it.

We have picked an obstetrician and we went with a doctor within the fertility group we used. Dr H no longer delivers babies, otherwise we would have loved to stick with him, but the best part is our OB is across the hall from Dr H, so we can pop in and say hello when we like. Our first pre-natal visit is on the 26th May at 11w6d. Until then Dr H will look after us for the first scan at 7w5d and then organise the nuchal translucency scan and blood test at around 11w3d, so we will be armed with the results at our first appointment with our new OB, Dr K.

So what to do in the next 17 days... I guess i could always use up all the fabric I bought ages ago to make nappies! Right... I am inspired, off to cut out!!!!!

3rd Beta results are in!!!

2009-04-07T19:38:00.003+10:00

So we had another beta done, 17dp3dt (or 20dpo) and its 815. Dr H is really happy with the results and so are we. No more blood tests now. We are scheduled in for an ultrasound on the 27th April at 10.30am. Kim will be just shy of 8 weeks pregnant by then so we will be able to see the heartbeat and tell if there is one or two. I'm thinking one, but you never never know!!!

2nd Beta results are in!!!

2009-04-03T14:19:00.003+10:00

HCG = 139
P4 = 334

Still good for 13dp3dt or 16dpo I think... at least its going up, what do you guys think??

WERE PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-04-01T16:29:00.002+10:00

We caved!!! Couldn't stand it any longer and we went in for bloods today and the result is positive. Our beta is 76 and progestrone is 376.4 which is excellent for 11dp3dt (or 14 days post egg pick up). YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! We have our BFP!!!!!!!!!! We go for another beta on Friday and then we get weekly blood tests to check on the progestrone levels until 12 weeks. We have our first ultrasound 3 weeks after the 2nd beta. Thank you girls so much for all your support!!!!!!!! Mwah!

And again...

2009-03-31T06:55:00.003+10:00

Darker again...

And darker...

2009-03-30T18:16:00.004+10:00

Ok well to try to get rid of the thought that the line was darker this morning because it was FMU, we took another test this afternoon, at the same time as yesterdays and the line is darker. If it was the HCG shot it should by rights be lighter, not darker, must be from a BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will test again in morning no doubt... Again click on photo to get a close up.

The line is darker...

2009-03-30T06:33:00.007+10:00

Well as you can see we started the hpt marathon. I think we did pretty well considering it is 12dpo (or 12 days post egg pick up). I was really sceptical about it on 11dpo because 1. We did it in the afternoon. 2. It was Sunday and we had a Pregnyl 1500 shot on Thursday night.

They say that hcg leaves your system at a rate of 1000 per day so by rights it should have been out of her system by 11dpo, but everybody metabolises hcg at a different rate. Anyway a ghost of a line came up on 11dpo so we decided to do another one the next day and if it was darker we knew it wasnt the hcg shot because by rights it should get lighter.

So we have decided to run with it until told otherwise. We're cautiously excited and optimistic that this is a BFP!! What do you think. Click on the photo for a close up.

Petrie and Pipette...

2009-03-28T07:07:00.005+10:00

So how are the twins going at 10dpo/7dp3dt?? Not sure at this stage... but Kim has been having uterine pains (implantation pains???) for the past 3 days. Short stabbing pains, sort of like period cramps than they go as fast as they come. Some are sharp and make her stop in her tracks for a second, then she just says "it's gone!".

For luteal support we did two 1500iu HCG injections. 3 days after the transfer and then another one 3 days after that. So the transfer was Saturday, HCG on Monday and HCG on Thursday. Today is Saturday. For women that have had an HCG injection as part of their infertility treatment, the hormone will take about 5-14 days to clear from the woman's system, depending on the dose and the individual woman. This can causes problems with interpretation of pregnancy tests done earlier than 14 days after an HCG injection.

That means that we cannot do a HPT earlier than Wednesday next week!! The blood test is due on Friday of next week!! So will we or wont we test with a HPT next wednesday??... We are on the home run peoples...

Life as per usual...

2009-03-24T17:06:00.002+10:00

Well Kim's laying around the house has come to an end today. She is at work today, but thats ok. She was goin nuts. The kids at her work know all about what is going on so they will make sure she doesn't lift anything and that she takes it easy. The girls there have nick-named the twin embryo's "Petrie & Pipette". We are 3 days down, 9 days to go until testing today. I thought about putting a ticker up but the only sort of ticker i want to put up is a Due Date Ticker...

2 on board and 2 frozen!!

2009-03-22T15:12:00.005+10:00

Well we had the transfer yesterday morning and everything went very well. When we got there we had:

2 x 6 cells at Grade2+ (the two we put back)
1 x 5 cell at Grade2+ (one we are going to freeze)
1 x 4 cell at Grade2 (one that they were going to keep an eye on)

A phone call to the lab today informed us that the 5 cell became a 6 cell grade 2 and got frozen and the 4 cell became a 5 cell grade 2 and was frozen as well!! I asked if they were meant to be 8 cells by day 3 and found out that our embryos were only 60 hours old when transferred and that the last two were the last ones to be injected hence being behind. I also asked if the 4 cell was the 2 cell the day before and she said no, that the 2 cell became the 5 cell and that one of the 4 cells was yet to divide again. So you never never know which one is going to look the best at any given time. They change grades all the time and the fastest ones can become the slowest in the end and the slow ones can catch up!!

So we have the best two embryos that are perfectly great embryo's on board! Kim went to accupuncture Friday afternoon at 5pm and straight after the transfer. We arent going to do anymore, the accupuncturist said that studies have shown that before and after transfer is all that is required. She put these little round sticky plasters with needles in them that are like tiny thumb tacks into Kim's ear and she said they can stay in for up to 7 days to assist implantation. Now all we can do is hope and pray!!!

At high risk of getting pregnant...Wow!

2009-03-20T09:58:00.003+10:00

Just a quick note (I am always at work when i get these updates).. But the embryologist called me to say that we have 3 embies at 4 cells and Grade 3 (the best) and 1 at 2 cells and Grade 2+. She only graded the 2 cell at 2+ because it is 2 cells but she is sure it will catch up (it must be a boy)... She said they look really really good and that we have a really high risk of getting pregnant with these embryo's and if we put two back we have a really high chance of getting twins!!! WOWEEEEE!!!

We made 4 em-babies!!!

2009-03-19T12:37:00.000+10:00

Just a quick one (I'm at work)...We had 4 out of 5 eggs fertilise!! We are going for a 3 day transfer on Saturday as the scientist explained that if we transfer two, it is better to freeze the other two embryos on day 3 as they defrost better than frozen blasties!! YAYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!! We are so happy!!!

The Egg Report...

2009-03-18T20:23:00.003+10:00

Well Kim had her EPU today and out of 7 follies she got 6 eggs. The big one had an egg in it, but it wasnt really good. The scientist called it a brown blob really. I asked to see the scientist to talk about the eggs and he revealed that out of the 6 collected we have 5 mature and ready for ICSI!!!!.

We have to call tomorrow at 10am to find out fertilisation rates. We are really really pleased with the outcome. It could have been alot worse. So 7 follies down to 6 eggs down to 5 mature. Not bad going. Hopefully they will all fertilise and we have 5 embies tomorrow. The scientist said its not often that you get 100% fertilisation so we will be happy if 3 or 4 fertilise. Even happier with 5 tho!!! Kim is a little bit sore, but not sore enough for her to take panadol or anything. We are really really glad we waited it out and went through to egg pick up.

Tip of the week!!

2009-03-17T19:27:00.003+10:00

I have a great tip for the trigger injections. Well any injection really. Get one of those ice bricks (the type you put in an esky to keep your food cool) out of the freezer and place it on your skin where you plan to inject, for a whole minute. Then remove the brick, swab the area, then jab the needle in quickly and inject the solution slowly. Kim had to have two trigger injections last night and it worked a treat. She didnt feel a thing!!! We go for EPU at 10am tomorrow morning with 6 follies and 1 possible cyst. Will let you all know how we go tomorrow!

Trigger Tonight, EPU Wednesday...

2009-03-16T13:47:00.005+10:00

We had our scan and the Dr H said there is still one huge follie (probably a cyst he said) and 6 others that are all the right size and so he said to trigger tonight!!! We have the Ovidrel shot, but also 5000iu of Pregnyl. He said that he wanted to make sure that the eggs fell away from the side of the wall of the follicle well and truely. He has been doing it more and more with women who are a little on the chubby side with great success. I'm not questioning the master!! Her E2 is 3391 today so it is great for 6 follicles.

Kim had a cry this morning when i gave her the shots. I think she is just over it. She is just being a trooper about it all this cycle. I feel bad because i was short with her on the phone earlier when she was asking how many embryo's well get from 6 follicles and what if there isnt an egg in every follicle. Me being in PMS mode said "I DONT KNOW OK, WHAT DO YOU THINK I HAVE ESP". I'm going to feel even worse waking her up at 11.30pm tonight to give her two trigger injections. Oh well at least she gets tomorrow off. Dont need anymore lucrin, thank god, because we ran out this morning pretty much. I think i should ring her now and apologise. I think she is feeling a bit fragile today. And no wonder with her E2 levels being so high.

What a ride...

2009-03-15T19:34:00.003+10:00

Wow. They call it the IVF rollercoaster. What a fortnight of stimming!! The ups and downs and back up again! Tomorrow we go for our final scan before egg pick up. I know our lovely Dr H said that he likes the look of those other six follicles (he hates that big fucker...as he likes to call it) they are all pretty much the same size and the E2 levels are going up nicely. He said the big one wont pop before egg pick up because of the Lucrin, but it probably wont have a nice egg in it. It could be just cyst as well.

Anyway we are going in with the hope that we have 6 nice follicles and get at least 5 nice eggs. We are hoping for 2 nice blasties to transfer. I think that is the most we can hope for out of this weird and unpredictable cycle. We have enough FSH and Lucrin for tomorrow mornings shots. I wonder if you have to take the Lucrin the day after the trigger? I dont remember ever having to... But then we haven't been on Lucrin before, only Synarel and I cant remember (it was 3 years ago now).

Beating the odds....

2009-03-13T12:43:00.001+10:00

Just a quick post from work!! Guess what!! We had our scan and bloods and we are going to Egg Pick Up!! We have 7 follies now! One of them is big 18mm and the rest are about 14mm so we might lose the big one but that still means 6 eggs and our FS changed his mind and decided to go ahead with the IVF!!! Yay!! E2 was 1920 which is great! Go back on Monday for another scan and bloods and then go to EPU on Wednesday 18/03/08. Gotta go, just wanted to say YAY!

One step forward...two steps back!

2009-03-10T20:48:00.003+10:00

Ok well we went for the scan and bloods today. We are back to 4 good follicles. 1 x 14 and 2 x 11 on the right side and 1 x 12 and a couple of smaller ones on the other side. Dr H said that the big 14mm one must be sucking up all the FSH and trying to become the lead follicle. E2 was 878. So we are going back for a scan on Friday and most likely converting this cycle to an IUI by triggering Saturday night and IUI on Monday. With new donor flavour! Saving our big bucks for a cycle where Kim's response is a bit better. Dr H said he likes 8+ follies to make it worthwhile to go to Egg Pick Up.

Initially we were pretty dissapointed, because Kim has had 11 IUIs and only one worked which ended in miscarriage. But we have 4 follicles and a new donor. Might be just the change we need. Last IUI we had 4 follicles but we used our old donor. He took 3 years to make 10 babies and the sperm lady said the quality was only really good enough to use each vial for IVF/ICSI (great to be informed of this post 11 IUI's). But she said the new donor motility and quality is excellent and should work doing IUI's.

So still jabbing with 300iu Gonal F and keeping on with the Lucrin and waiting waiting waiting for Friday to make the final decision. But its heading for IUI this cycle I think. We dont really want to go to EPU with only 4 or 5 follicles either.

Progress on Kims IVF/ICSI #2

2009-03-09T19:47:00.006+10:00

On Saturday we went back for another scan and bloods. Her right ovary had 3 follicles and her left had 2 and a couple of smaller ones. Her E2 was 450. Dr H decided to up the Gonal F to 300iu for 3 more days and we go back in the morning for another scan and bloods. Hopefully we get to trigger tomorrow night for retrieval on Thursday morning. If we only have 5 follicles we are probably going to go ahead to EPU. If we have lost any we will probably convert to IUI for this cycle and if we get a BFN, try IVF again with a different protocol. God knows why Kim is being a poor responder this time around. Guess her ovaries have well and truely been put asleep on the Lucrin. Only thing is the Synarel didnt stop her from ovulating last time. Perhaps doing an atagonist cycle might work. FSH from day 2 and then add Cetrotide or Orgalutran to keep her from ovulating on day 9 or ten to stop her ovulating on her own. Anyway getting ahead of myself here because this cycle might actually work. Quality over quantity right!

No follies...

2009-03-04T07:41:00.006+10:00

Just a quick one to say that we had the scan and couldnt see much of anything. Dr thought he was jumping the gun a bit having a scan on CD9 (after 5 days of stims)and her E2 was only 71. So we have to go for another scan and bloods on Saturday which will be CD13. I think she will be on FSH for a while. Does anyone know if being on stims past day 14 or 15 is a bad sign? Hoping not. Kim was a bit upset she couldnt see any follicles yet... is this normal?

The Secret...

2009-02-28T21:02:00.016+10:00

The Secret teaches us that we create our lives, with every thought every minute of every day. Live The Secret and create the life of your dreams.....

Ok then. If we want a baby we had better get his or her room ready. Today we went and put a deposit on a cot and change table. We already have a pram, but its packed away. We decided that we are going to set up the nursery, starting with the big basics. A cot, a change table, a bassinet, a car seat and a highchair. Then move onto smaller basics once we get pregnant.

As for getting pregnant, we are on CD 6 presently. Started Lucrin on CD1. Then we started 225iu Gonal F on CD4. A day earler than what Dr H normally does and 75iu more than last time Kim was stimmed. We go for our first blood and scan on Tuesday after 6 days on stims and it will be only be CD 9. I think Dr H is being extra careful with Kim this time around. I mean he knows just as well as we do what happened last time Kim did IVF/ICSI and besides that its been almost 3 years and 15 cycles and that 14 out of 15 have failed. So we are going for broke this time around. Lots of FSH/lots of follicles/lots of embies, transfer 2 max, freeze heaps of grade a embies for me later. Thinking positive.

Speaking of thinking positive, these are 'the secret' cot and change table we decided upon. They are the Babyco Heritage matching Cot and change table in Jarrah stain. The cot becomes a toddler bed and has a one handed drop side. Niiice

Spreadsheeting...

2009-02-22T10:42:00.010+10:00

Nope, still no AF. Maybe tonight...

When do you know you are getting into the "Long Term TTC" Category? When you have to do up an Excel Spreadsheet to remember how many attempts you've had and how many follicles and what drugs you took etc etc. Well i started a spreadsheet. Here are the results.

15x attempts using same donor (now reached family limit)

4x Megan; 11x Kim

2x IVF; 13x IUI

1x Natural/IUI; 1x FSH/IUI; 8x Clomid/IUI; 3x Clomid/FSH/IUI

1x1 follicle; 6x2 follicles; 3x3 follicles; 2x4 follicles; 1x7 follicles; 1x8 follicles

1x Poor response to FSH (Megan's 1st IVF Converted to IUI)

1x Low fertilisation rate (Megan's 2nd IVF 2 out of 8 eggs fertilise)

2x Slow growing embryo's (Megan's 2nd IVF Day 3 Transfer 1x 4 cell 1 x 5 cell)

1x Early Ovulation prior to Egg Pick Up (Kim's Donor cycle 3 immature eggs retrieved)

1x Zero embryos to transfer (Kim's Donor cycle 1 arrested and 2 triploid embryos)

1x BFP (Singleton from 50mg Clomid/2 follicle/7th attempt/ Kim's 2nd IUI)

1x Miscarriage (Subchorionic Hematoma)

0x Baby in our arms (One little girl in our hearts)

I cannot fit all that into my signature on my TTC Forum and it would make for a very big and complex TTC Ticker wouldn't it. I dont really want a flashing box of those statistics ruining my blog either. They are really quite hopeless statistics aren't they? Still we go on. I think we may go on until there is 1 or 2 babies in our arms. Maybe we should have not had so many attempts with IUI. But we really didnt have the money to do IVF again until now. We didnt have another choice.

Embryo adoption is another option that I've talked about with you all before. We are going to put our names down for the donor program after this IVF attempt. Even if this attempt is sucessful. I am turning 37 this year and my fertility was questionable when i was 33, hell even when i was 20. I think that will be the path that we go down to achieve a pregnancy for me. Unless by some miracle Kim makes heaps of eggs and we get some good frozen embryos that i can try to fall pregnant with after Kim. Peoples.... wouldn't that be some kind of wonderful!!

Still Waiting...

2009-02-21T22:05:00.012+10:00

Well its CD 27 today and Kim has just gone to bed with a headache... a sure sign that she will get her period tomorrow. Let the jabbing begin already!!!!!

In other news i thought i would post a couple of pics of Holly...(the destroyer) of everything!! She has grown and she likes to chew everything that is not bolted down, oh and also things that are actually bolted down as well.

And not forgetting (sing in the tune of Spider Man) "Jakey Man...Jakey Man, if anyone can save us, Jakey Man Can!!!" We sing that to him all the time. We bought him a frisbee today, he chewed it up in 5 seconds flat, guess we'll have to stick to the Kongs.

And I got a pic of our new car... I LOVE OUR NEW CAR!! Its a Mazda 3 and we got the Maxx Sport model because it has a thousand airbags and it won Wheels Car Magazine "Safest Car of the Year" award in 2008. I sort of got obsessed with safety features in a car since dad's accident. Not to mention she looks HOT!

The exact same Tegan and Sara Concert we went to...WOW

2009-02-13T07:42:00.000+10:00

And we thought we'd have to flip a coin...

2009-02-07T22:17:00.004+10:00

Well Dr H recommended we should do IVF on Kim. Because of my age (37 this year) and poor fertilisation rates last time, he thought that would be our best chance. He said that if you have poor fertilisation the first cycle, it's usually the trend and that I would keep having poor fertilisation rates. So we don't want to do another cycle of IVF on me, just to have the same result.

We asked about Kim's last cycle of IVF (where she was being my egg donor) and he said that it was a combination of poor management (not many blood tests) too long on FSH (waiting for my cycle to catch up to Kim's) and the fact that she ovulated despite sniffing the Synarel. He also said that most definately she ovulated the mature follicles and that the 3 eggs that they managed to get were most likely not mature enough so therefore did not fertilise normally.

So this time we are using Lucrin injections instead of Synarel as it is fool proof and doing more intensive monitoring to make sure she doesn't ovulate before egg pick up. Instead of 150iu of Gonal F we will be doing 225iu, so hopefully we will get more than 7 follicles. Then we will be transferring two embryos to Kim. Hopefully we will be able to freeze some embryos so i can do FET for our next baby, so it won't matter how old I am.

Our Aussie donor has reached his family limit of ten children now so we have to pick a new donor. Luckily because we are doing IVF and not IUI we can still have a new local donor for free. If we picked a US donor it would cost us another $900 per vial. So we went to see the lovely sperm ladies and we have gone through all the profiles and have picked a new donor and reserved 5 vials. He is a new donor but has some vials out of quarantine and so hopefully he wont reach his limit any time soon.

So now we are just waiting for CD1 to start the Lucrin, CD5 to start the FSH and off we go!!!! Kim is CD 13 now so another two weeks or so and we start the jabbing!! Yay!!!!!!!

Back from the dead... (not literally)

2009-01-31T20:16:00.013+10:00

Well that's how it feels to be posting again on this blog. Because this blog was to document our trying to conceive a baby, when we aren't actually TTC, it falls by the way side because basically our life is boring in every other way. Ok well we did buy a brand new blue Mazda 3 sedan and went to Sydney to see Tegan and Sara in concert and Kim got a Store Manager position and i got a $1000 xmas bonus from my boss. Not to mention that i became a Great Aunty for the second time....WAY not boring. What I mean is that life goes on, we get up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch tv, play cards, visit friends and family, buy stuff, play with the dogs, play with the cats, go fishing, go bowling, clean the house, sleep etc etc etc. I wrap it all up into one word and that one word is basically "waiting". WTC (waiting to conceive) is much more boring than TTC. Believe me.

Anyway after alot of stuffing around, i finally got my back pay from the hospital and we have put the money into a high interest savings account that we cannot get to with a keycard. We have private health insurance and have been in the health fund for over a year. We have an appointment on Friday to see the sperm lady and to see Dr H to talk about the in's and out's of it, but either way, one of us is going to do IVF. At this stage we dont care who. So we are leaving it up to Dr H to decide who he thinks is the best bet. Here are the odds:

ME: I am 37 this year with a history of mild endometriosis; 4 years ttc in a prior hetrosexual relationship without any luck (with only one cycle of clomid). 1st IVF cycle at age 33 got converted to an IUI due to a poor response to stimulation. 2nd IVF went a bit better and I got 8 eggs but only two fertilised and were transferred. Did another IUI cycle with clomid then gave up and we decided to use Kim's Eggs with the donor sperm and transfer any resulting embryos into me. Despite the fertility treatment, I have never been pregnant. Current health is pretty good. I no longer have thyroid antibodies high enough to warrant a diagnosis of hashimotos and the hidradenitis is under control with long term antibiotics, so elected not to trial Roaccutane. Still on Zoloft to keep the depression away, oh and taking folic acid and a Zyrtec every day for chronic urticaria.

KIM: She has just turned 35 and her history is of becoming my egg donor and having a good response to fertility drugs on her first cycle of IVF, but then ovulating before egg pick up. ICSI was performed on 3 immature eggs in a last ditch effort. They all fertilised but one arrested after 24 hrs, the other two fertilised abnormally so weren't able to be transferred to my uterus. Then we decided to do IUI on Kim and she got pregnant on her 2nd IUI but we lost the baby (that had a normal 46XX karotype) due to a subchorionic haematoma at 7 a half weeks. 8 more IUIs later and she hasn't been able to fall pregnant again. Current health is ok, sore back, sore neck, get migraines and terrible period pains. Not on any medication except panadol or nurofen when required and taking folic acid every day.

Where would you put your money???

Joining the club!

2008-10-26T07:07:00.005+10:00

Ok i have joined the "dosette pill box" club and it is working!! Last week i took my meds everytime on time, except for two nights because i was lying on the lounge and fell asleep and then got up and went to bed without taking the E-mycin. Oh well thats alot better than before. I am anti-depressed and anti-itchy. The armpit situation seems the same tho. Not sure if they are doing anything for my current lesions, but i haven't had any new ones, so that's a bonus. Maybe i can get the current ones cut out and keep taking the e-mycin to prevent major outbreaks in the future.

Holly is still being very cute and a loving member of the family, she is growing bigger every day. Her and our other dog Jake (Blue Heeler) get on really well and play together all the time.

Today we go to visit a friend of Kim's who has just had a baby girl and i am giving away some of my homemade cloth nappies. This will be a good test for them on an actual baby! Can't wait to see if they fit and if they absorb a wee and contain a poo! They are only made of flanellette and old towel but there are heaps of layers and they have elastic legs and backs and are secured with velcro with cross-over tabs, because Ella is really tiny. They look really big but they have been packed away flat for a fair while, when they are on they will look better. The absorbent part folds out so they dry faster.

Our new baby!!

2008-10-23T18:28:00.004+10:00

Bad pill popper!!

2008-10-12T10:57:00.007+10:00

We have a new baby in the family, her name is Holly, she is a 8 week old Border Collie puppy . We went to the country to visit friends on the week end and came home with Holly. She was bred by a farmer and she is just to die for cute. I had a border collie 14 years ago as my substitute child when i couldn't have a baby when i was married. I lost her in the divorce procedings and it has taken me this long to get another one. I wanted to be absolutely settled. She is sooo smart and sooo cute, i am in love with her. She is a distraction for everything. Photo's to come soon.

She can't be blamed for distracting me from taking my tablets though. That has been going on for a long time. I am so bad at taking medication. My Zoloft, i filled two prescriptions before i went to Malta, so 60 days worth, and started them on 20th June and just finished them last week, say 10th Oct. Thats 8 weeks meds in 16 weeks. And I am still to refill that prescription and its the 12th October!!

As for the E-mycin that i am supposed to take 2 x 2 times a day, i remember to take that once a day every 2nd day or so. No wonder it is making no difference to my armpit!! I can't even take a anti-histamine tablet daily to prevent having itchy itchy drive you mad itchy hands every night, so i have to take phenergan every night before going to bed. Do you have a super duper way to make sure you remember to take your tablets EVERY day as prescribed?

Healthy as a fat horse!!

2008-10-02T07:25:00.005+10:00

Well the endocrinologist said that i am completely healthy except for being overweight and having Hidradenitis. He said that my thyroid antibodies are insignificant and that it doesnt warrent a diagnosis of Hashimoto's and that my cholesterol, insulin, and blood count were perfectly normal. I had a full physical and he said that i checked out very well and that i am healthy as a horse, just fat.

He told me that he loves his food and he has to watch his weight, so 10 years ago he started running. After six months of running he lost 1 kg. So he told me diets do nothing long term, exercise does nothing but make you fitter and that dieticians are a waste of time. He said the only way he can see me losing 35kg and keeping it off long term was to have Lap Band Surgery. I read up a little bit on this and immediately rejected that idea.

So i guess i have to go on a diet, lose the weight and then stay on a diet or else i will just put it all back on. Sounds exciting huh. He said if i make some major dietary changes long term, like no sugar in my coffee (havent had any for over 10 years), lite milk instead of full cream (same, on lite milk for years and years) and cut out the fat (ok, some foods i eat have fat) i might lose 5 kgs a year and that is the best way. So in doing that i will get to my ideal weight range in about 7 years. Yay.

So i suspect this doctor is useless, but i am going back. He is checking out my hormones throughout my cycle to see if he can figure out if there is something someone else has missed. I doubt it but who knows. He wants to see if there is any reason why i am intrinsically infertile AND have Hidradenitis. Perhaps a link between the excess androgen and hidradenitis may have a factor with why i cant get pregnant. So I have to have blood drawn on day 14-15 of my cycle and day 20, then go back and see him in November.

Its working!

2008-09-28T16:48:00.005+10:00

Well kim and i have been drinking vegetable soup and eating fruit and vegies for 3 days now and I have already lost 1.5kgs. I know this will mainly be fluid, but at the same time I have been drinking heaps of water. Still its good to see the scales go down in such a short time frame and keeps me motivated until i see the endocrinologist/dietician.

I also saw a dermatologist a few days ago about my skin condition Hidradenitis Suppurativa and i am currently on 800mg Erythromycin twice a day. I am not sure why I am on the antibiotics except to humour her, because i have no infection. But she says it will help with the inflammation. I currently have two abcesses in each arm pit, one on my behind and a tiny one on my breast. These things show up overnight and cause me lots of pain and misery. Doesnt do much for my self esteem either.

Anyway, after i have been on the antibiotics for 6 or 7 weeks, she is going to start me on a trial of Roaccutane. From what I have read this hasn't helped other sufferers at all. But like i said, i am taking the treatment that she is prescribing, mainly just to humour her. To prove that pills wont make a difference and that i really need incision and drainage as they appear. I have been on every treatment (although never Roaccutane) known to man and surgery has been the only thing that has relieved the pain. I've had this condition for nearly 20 years and with this last outbreak, have had to take Pandadeine Max (Paracetamol with 15mg Codeine) and keep dressings on one of my arm pits for 6 weeks straight.

There is a Yahoo Group dedicated to sufferers of this disease that i have joined. Reading through all the threads I have found that alot of people describe being Insulin Resistant or having PCOS. Although I cant find any articles about Hidradenitis being linked to infertility, it has been linked to Androgen Dysfunction which is linked to PCOS. Hyperandrogenic conditions are also associated with insulin resistance (a precursor to diabetes), diabetes, and heart disease. This topic came up when i saw the dermatologist as well. So it will be interesting to see how my insulin resistance tests turn out. My appointment with the endocrinologist is on Tuesday.

IVF Next Year... and thats ok!

2008-09-27T09:10:00.007+10:00

Well i have been emailing the HR manager at my old work and typically, because it is a government institution, i had to be fucked around a bit before she finally conceded and admitted that i was eligible to the back pay. Initially she was like "Oh I dont know if you are eligible, because you no longer work for us". I was like "Get Fucked!"... no i was more like "why the hell wouldnt i be eligible, i worked there for that period and the memo sent out to employees stated "anyone who worked in the emergency department as a triage clerk in that period is eligible" hence my old work mates emailing me and letting me know. Thank god i stayed in touch or else i might never have known, and by the looks HR weren't going to let me know, because they didnt think i was eligible.!!

Any how long story short, i AM eligible and they are processing the back pay's for the current employees first, then they will get around to doing mine late November, maybe December. I am just glad that i will be getting it this year. Which means that we wont have IVF until the new year, which is ok. Having the cycle at the beginning of the year will mean we reach the safety net at the beginning of the calender year. Every subsequent cycle will be less expensive that way. For those of you that aren't familiar with the Medicare Safety Net here in Australia, it goes like this:

Every Australian resident (except Defence Personel, they have there own hospitals and doctors) has a Medicare Card. Medicare was originally set up to encourage people to go to private doctors etc, paying and getting a rebate on some of the expenses, to relieve the burden on the Public Health System. It is not private health insurance. High income earners are still eligible, but pay a levy at tax time, if they do not have private health insurance.

Some items are not covered by Medicare (like cosmetic procedures etc). ICSI only recently became covered by Medicare, it used to be considered an experimental procedure. Medicare set a fee for each item or service. This is not necesarily the fee your doctor will charge you, they can charge what they like above the fee set by medicare. But Medicare only rebate 85% (out of hospital) and 75% (in hospital) for each item of service, up to the amount they set for each item, not your doctors fee. The remainder is called the gap, or "out-of-pocket" expense.

If you are in hospital, you can claim the other 25% from your private health insurance. (Sometimes more, depending on your level of cover). Your private health insurance doesnt pay anything for doctors out of hospital. (They do pay a benefit for dental, physio, chiro, podiatry etc if you aren't in hospital, but medicare doesn't). Screwed up health system huh.

Anyway, Medicare have a "safety-net" for out-of-pocket expenses, over the calander year. First you must register for the safety net with Medicare, it is not automatic. Once you are "out-of-pocket" $1058.70, you will receive a further 80% of any out-of pocket expenses for the rest of the calander year. If you have a pension card or health care card, then the safetly net limit is lower and you receive the benefits sooner, which is good for pensioners.

So for us, the first IVF with ICSI will cost around $6000. After claiming the rebate from Medicare and our private health insurance, we will be out of pocket around $1700. Instantly we have reached the safety net of $1058.70, so we will receive 80% of the remaing $641.30 out-of-pocket expenses from Medicare as well.

$1700 - $1058.70 (Safety Net) = $641.30 x 80% = $513.04

$1700 - $513.04 = $1186.96 - Total out-of-pocket for first cycle

$1700 - $1360 (80%) = $340 - Total out-of-pocket per subsequent cycle

In summary, our out of pocket for our first cycle would be $1700 without the safety net. But with the safety net, it will only be $ 1186.96. Any subsequent cycle that calander year we'll only be out-of-pocket $340.

So having our first cycle at the beginning of the year makes sense and will save us money big time. Plus it gives us time to lose weight and get healthier. Kim is 83kg. She isn't as bad as I am, but she would be much better off losing 10-15kgs or so. Our house is full of fruit and veges and lean beef and chicken and nothing else. There is some sultana bran on the kitchen bench, but that won't last long. LOL.

Me on the other hand, I am 107kgs now. I need to lose the 35kgs I have put on in the last 3 years. I have an appointment with an endocronologist/dietician on tuesday, to seriously look at tackling this thyroid/weight issue. I had some blood tests yesterday in preparation, full blood count, liver function, thyroid AND thyroid antibodies, insulin resistance and cholesterol.

Wow, anyone would think I work for a doctor or something, well I do!! Sorry if this post was a bit boring, but hopefully it will explain why we are ok with starting IVF in the new year. I know with Kim being 35 in December and me being 37 next year, time is not on our side. But being overweight is not on our side either. Maybe if we were fertile it woudn't be an issue. But we are not. Obviously. We still have donor embryos in our back pocket if all else fails.

Also, did you read in the news that NSW are allowing children that are conceived by insemination/IVF to have both mothers on their birth certificate!! Looks like we might be booking into a private hospital for a c-section over the border!! Although Kim thinks that we should take advantage of the extra income and not put me on the birth certificate, so she can get the single parent pension while she is not working. This is an issue at our place at the moment. But lets face it, can we survive on one income?

Added: Kim feels that the Australian Government has been ripping off same sex couples for so long, why not do what Australian lesbian couples have been doing forever. Take advantage of it and claim the single parent pension to suppliment my income while she is at home with the baby. As long as I am not on the birth certificate, Centrelink cannot prove we are a same-sex couple. Centrelink (our welfare system) will be recognising same-sex couples in a few months. If i am on the birth certificate, legally I will have to support Kim while she is not working. Hopefully, tax laws change at the same time and I will be able to claim her and the baby as dependents, then this wouldn't be an issue, but i doubt that the taxation laws will change at the same time, that is still to be determined. Same as civil unions. What would you do?

God gives you what you need...sometimes...

2008-09-23T06:52:00.007+10:00

Ok i am going to start this post with an old joke. You have probably heard it before, but here goes...

A man fell overboard from his little boat, and was thrashing around in the water when a fisherman in his little boat pulled up. -"Jump in, i'll save you" - he screamed. -"No" - cried the drowning man, - "God will save me". A couple of hours later a charter boat arrived on the scene and the captain threw him a life line and yelled out "Grab the life line, we'll save you" - "No" - cried the drowning man, -"It's ok, God will save me". A day went by and a rescue helicopter was sent to search for the missing man. The helicopter found him and hovered over the man sending down a ladder. - "We came to rescue you, climb the ladder" - yelled the pilot. The drowning man screamed back - "No, it's alright, I have faith, God will save me". The man eventually drowned, and as he crossed the Pearly Gates, he ran straight to God. - "I placed my faith in you, and you let me drown, why didn't you save me?! "Hey!" said God, "I sent three bloody boats and a damned helicopter".

Lately Kim has been a little jaded and began asking me, "Why does god give the pot-smoking crack whores babies, and not us? Why wont god give us a baby????" Ok we have been asking ourselves that question for a long time, but anyway. Kim is Catholic and believes in God, reads the bible sometimes, whatever. I on the otherhand was not raised religiously, apart from going to Sunday School sporadically. The denomination was determined by whoever was my best friend at the time. I was there for the fun stuff like paper mache, iced arrowroot biscuits and lime cordial. I still am not convinced. But i received some news this week that has made me wonder.

It seems that while i worked for a big public hospital, i was under paid for the last two years and will be receiving back pay of around $13,000. I might get about $10,000 after it is taxed, but plenty of money for IVF!!! A full global cycle at our clinic costs $6,000 including ICSI. Each cycle we will be out of pocket around $1,000 with our private health insurance refunding $5,000. So if we are careful with the money we could probably do around 4 or 5 cycles of IVF with that money if required.

So i figure that maybe god cant give us an actual baby, but he provides the opportunity to try to have a baby. Like that money just came out of nowhere man... I'm not going to start screaming "Hallelulah!" until the money hits the bank. But lets just say that i am more than mildly excited that we will have enough money to get this baby making project going in the right direction very soon, like within a month!!!!!! If we don't get a baby after 5 cycles of IVF and however many FET's we get out of 5 global cycles, then we are going to give up and raise puppies or something for God's sake! I dont know, I cant think ahead of not getting a baby out of 5 cycles.

Five cycles!!!!!!! I cant believe we may have enough money to really give this a really good shot!!! Not that our efforts so far have been nothing, but IVF with ICSI at our clinic has the best success rates in Australia. Where as IUI's with donor sperm has a success rate of about 10% per cycle maybe 15% with superovulation. It counts for alot to see that there is actually an embryo being transferred too. Never knowing if the timing was right or if those frozen sperm are actually doing there job and getting to the eggs is a pain in the arse too. Bring on the IVF, we are ready.(We are going on diets immediately to lose weight and I am going to send Kim to accupuncture as well, to help our chances!)

QFG - Cumulative pregnancy rates from one complete IVF cycle and then subsequent embryo transfers:

Ages 25 - 34 years - 61%

35 - 39 years 48%<--------------US (I'm 36, Kim will be 35 in December)

>40 years 19%

Not pregnant... for the 15th time

2008-09-11T22:53:00.008+10:00

Well kim finally got her period on 16dpo. Those pessaries really do your head in. But after a HPT being negative on day 12, 14 and 15, we sort of knew what the answer was going to be.

We figure we will have enough money for IVF at the beginning of December. Thing is what do we do in the meantime. Keep trying IUI's? I mean 4 follicles... come on.

Well anyway, we have decided to give this cycle a miss. Give kims poor little ovaries a break after last month. So that makes the next cycle an October cycle and if that doesnt work, on to IVF for us.

In better news, go give my friend congrats on her good news and check out the gorgeous new addition of this lovely family.

11 days down...59 days to go...

2008-09-06T07:55:00.003+10:00

Ok the seventy day wait is not really a great idea is it? Anyway, one would normally predict that we totally would have POAS by 11 dpo, but we haven't. Kim's boobs are so sore that she feels as if someone has used them as punching bags for weeks, but we know that is part and parcel of using the pessaries.

Oh the joys of waiting. Ok i have serious PMS and i am running out of calm, patient-like stuff now! I have been a monster at work for the past two days, luckily i am no longer "pre" menstrual and i can try to semi-enjoy my weekend by doing some sewing. I have half a dozen little newborn size fitted nappies cut out and i also have some work pants of kims to take up. There is house work to be done and a new front garden to water and tend to, but here i am on the computer, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes while kim is hard at work. I just feel in limbo land at the moment and i don't know if it is the TWW or the PMS that has me stuck on the chair googling etc etc.

I have been referred to an endocrinologist and a dermatologist. I now have two specialists, well we will wait until i have met them to determine whether i stick with them, to help sort out my two "conditions". The hashimotos and the hidradenitis. Hopefully the endocrinologist will help me sort out my weight and prevent my thyoid being attacked and me getting diabetes. Then I am seeing the dermatologist to trial Roacctutane. So at the moment I am researching it to see if i even want to trial it. Scarey stuff!! Have any of you guys taken it?

Infertility gives TWW a new meaning...

2008-08-31T09:03:00.017+10:00

You know how the "Two Week Wait" normally drives one mad... well surprisingly i tend to be calmer than ever before. I'm in no rush to find out if the IUI has worked. I'm not looking for symptoms (waste of time that would be with Kim popping progesterone pessaries every night).

We've had a boat load of symptoms before and its been a BFN each and every time, so why bother getting our hopes up. So i decided to come up with a new meaning for the TWW which makes being patient a virtue. A virtue that alot of us normally have lost by this stage, but somehow I seem to have kept mine intact. Kim on the other hand wants to test every day from about 7 days post IUI. Maybe its a non birth mother thing...

In the beginning we thought that it wasn't over until the fat lady sang and we tested our little hearts out before the TWW was even over, right up until AF came. So we couldn't even make it through the TWW back in those days. But I think for those of us that have been on this fertility treatment reproductive roller coaster this long, (over two years) by the 14th attempt, the TWW has a completely different meaning to the regular TWW we started out with and so we have become older and wiser.

Even if you get two pink lines, we know all too well that its not until the second beta that you can start to really believe you are in with a chance. So it really becomes a "three week wait" from insemination to that magic doubling number time. Then you compare your numbers to the little HCG graph on the internet and obsessively google to find out you are either under the average number and freak out, or you are average so you think that you can exhale or you are above average and you think you are having twins or more.

But really you have yet another "three week wait" for a scan to confirm the heartbeat/s. So there really is no point in trying to get yourself through a "two week wait" when really, from insemination, it is really a "five week wait", before you can comfortably try to semi-relax.

Then you have to take another deep breath and hope you get to the "twelve weeks pregnancy" hurdle, which at that stage, it has turned into a "ten week wait" from insemination. Even tho there are no guarantees, THIS is the time i think (not know, never gotten to this stage) when you can really let your guard down and try to accept that maybe you are going to have a healthy baby and celebrate.

So you see, even though it has the same acronym, TWW, I really believe that when you are undergoing fertility treatment and/or you have been down the miscarriage road before, the TWW has a different meaning... it's really the "Ten Week Wait". Or for those of you that can't bear the sound that, how about this... From insemination to the 12 week mark it is now called the "Seventy Day Wait" or SDW.

5 days down, 65 days to go...... Oh holy crap, I think my patience just ran out the door.

We're back...Kim's 10th IUI

2008-08-24T19:00:00.014+10:00

Well we've been back for about a month... and i've been meaning to post here but i guess i had to get over the jet lag, catch up with everyone, fix the computer, get settled in back at work etc etc. The computer is only running on 1/2 a gig of memory as one of the memory sticks stopped working. I had to reload windows and get rid of viruses and spyware ... i dont know what those girls who were house sitting did to the computer, but now it seems to be running ok, slowly but surely.

Anyhow the trip was great, it was 35 degrees celsius every day on average, sometimes hotter or cooler by a couple of degrees. Lots of stairs, lots of walking, lots of sight seeing. So far i have uploaded all the photos on facebook, but yet to upload them on to flickr. My computer is so slow it is painful to do. But as soon as I get around to replacing the bung memory stick, i will upload the photos. All 300 of them!!!

So since we've been back, i've been to the doctors because i haven't been feeling well. I would have expected to lose some weight with all the walking we did for 5 weeks, but alas I put on 2 kilos. And no it wasn't like i ate alot, in fact i ate less because the heat put me off eating. So I had my thyroid tested, because my sister has Hashimotos and I have the symptoms and the blood test confirmed I have early Hashimoto's Disease. My TSH level is still within normal limits, but my thyroid antibody levels are rising and way above normal. So basically my metabolism is slowing right down and my joints are inflamed and i have unusually dry skin and i am tired all the time. When the antibody levels get higher, they will start to attack my thyroid gland and I will have to take thyroxine.

I also found out that high levels of the thyroid peroxidase antibody can cause infertility and cause IVF to fail. So that explains alot. I wont be having anymore fertility treatment, even with donor embryo's. It won't work apparently. I am sad about that, but what can i do about it?? Absolutely nothing. There is no treatment for lowering the antibodies. They will keep rising. . I can only treat the symptoms.

We are in the middle of a cycle now. We did the trigger after 100mg Clomid days 2-6 and 75iu Puregon days 7-14 and she has 4 follicles. Dr H said that he was a little worried about inseminating with so many follicles, but we haven't fallen pregnant with 2 follicles so we are willing to take the chance of a multiple pregnancy. Hopefully we get one healthy baby. You would think with 4 follicles that at least one would work, wouldnt you.... So cross your fingers and toes for us. We are well on the way to saving up the 6 thousand we need for an IVF cycle, until then we will keep trying IUI with the meds. Hopefully we wont need to.

I'll try and upload one photo from our trip now... it's the view from where we were staying with Kims parents. i promise to try and catch up and comment on all your blogs and find out where all you girls and where you are up to. I will say a big Congrats to Cali tho... Thank God, Mohammed, Krishna or whoever it is out there looking over that girl... If Cali can do it we all can, even me and Kim. I think every one on our blog list is pregnant or has had a baby except for the Beanies and us. The baby gods just have to shine on us soon girls... (oh and also Bird Baby and Mrs Bluemont ) ... sorry, should have looked at my blogroll more closely.. Come on baby gods!!

Not pregnant... for the 14th time

2008-06-12T08:33:00.006+10:00

Well Kim got up to pee on a stick and she had her periods.. pee'd on a stick anyway and it was very negative. 12dpo as usual... is that considered a short leutal phase?? Anyway, about to ring Dr H to let him know and to tell him that we are going on our holiday and that when we get back we are going to see him to discuss our IVF options (like whos eggs, who carries, ICSI and donor embryo's) now we have private health cover... no more mucking around.

So far so good...

2008-06-11T19:51:00.005+10:00

Well its 11dpo today... Kim has sore boobs and period pains... but no period. She got me to pick up a couple of hpt's on the way home from work tonight so she can test in the morning on 12dpo...will see what happens. Thank you guys so much for the support. I love checking my emails each night to see that you are there in the TWW with us.

Other than the torture that is the TWW, we have busied ourselves with packing our bags for the trip to Malta next Thursday. Yes thats right, 8 days to go!!!!!! I'm getting so excited!! Kim is getting excited too (she usually waits until the last minute to get excited over anything) and it show's with how much money she is spending.

She is turning her nerves about the trip into a spending spree on new underwear, new jeans, new tee's, new shoes, new toiletries, new everything!! Now truth be told, Kim is not normally a spendaholic (unlike me) so when she let rip on the credit card this week, I started to realise it's because she is so anxious about the trip!!

She bought girl's underwear!!!! I was like huh? she usually wears boxers or guys bond's trunks etc. but she explained that she cannot let her mother see her hanging out men's underwear on the washing line. I am still wondering how I am going to go hiding all my tattoos from her in the Malta summer... sigh!!

Oh well, Kim's family just have to accept me that way i am coz i can't and don't want to change. Hopefully they won't throw holy water on me and press a crucifix on my forehead once I get there. I mean they are planning all this sight seeing etc and they are going places Kim has been and done, so I presume that is for my benefit, so they can't be that bad. They also organised a Catamaran trip over to Sicily (Catania) and a bus tour for the four of us (Kim and I and her mum and dad)so I am also getting to go to Italy!!

Ok guys... I have never been overseas before. The longest I have sat on a plane is about 2 hours. Its a 22 hour flight to Dubai then a 5 hour flight to Malta. Any tips on long distance air travel for a novice???

Two for the price of one...

2008-05-31T20:54:00.005+10:00

Well those extra couple of clicks of the Puregon pen worked!! Kim had two huge perfectly round follicles, one on each side. One was 21.3 and the other was 20.6 at 7am Thursday morning. Had bloods and there was no LH surge as yet so we triggered that night and inseminated this morning.

Dr H apologized as she had a little bit of trauma to the cervix this time. She lightly spotted today, but it stopped by this evening. Has this ever happed to any of you guys? Any how she was in agony this morning when we were at the Doc's office, before the IUI, sure sign of immenent ovulation, so we think we hit the nail on the head. With double the chances.

Kim mostly gets two follicles. But normally both on the same side so they aren't perfectly round and sort of squished up against each other. Maybe one takes over by the time we inseminate, so this time with one on both sides, hopefully they will both release. Last time she had one on both sides Kim got pregnant. We think its a good omen anyhow. Now for the TWW. Thank you guys for all your crossed fingers and toes. We are pretty hopeful this time.

Kim's 9th IUI begins...

2008-05-28T20:23:00.006+10:00

Well its sort of half over, just a quick post to tell ya's where we are up to, more tomorrow after the scan and bloods.

CD 11 today, Kim took Clomid 100mg days 2-6 and 75iu Puregon days 7-11 and tomorrow is the CD12 scan and bloods.

I may or may not have done an extra click on the puregon pen a couple of times (80iu) when no one was looking to see if she gets an extra egg, my bad??

We'll see how it turns out tomorrow..

Clean as a whistle...

2008-05-17T11:28:00.003+10:00

I am happy to report that Kim had her Laparoscopy/Hysteroscopy & Dye Studies done and there is no endometriosis, no fibroids, no polyps and no inflammation or blockages in the tubes. Dr H took a biopsy of the endometrium and we get the results on monday, but other than that he said her reproductive organs look untouched by human hands. He mentioned that her ovaries looked a little older than her years tho (a little wrinkley). Maybe from all the stimulation they have had to endure over the past two years. Still he said that he still has high hopes that she will fall pregnant with a little help from Clomid and some under the counter FSH. So it looks like Clomid AND injectables for Kim then intra-uterine insemination for the time being.

We are going to have one more go before going to Malta. I know I know, I said we weren't going to but we changed our minds. We are women, its our perogative. 3 months after a laparoscopy is the "fertile window" and if we wait until we get back we will miss 2 of those 3 months. This way we only miss one while we are overseas. Hopefully we will be secretly celebrating at Kim's sisters wedding for more reasons than one. Dr H said that she should get her period when it was due originally so thats about a weeks time. He is posting out the script for Clomid 100mg days 2-6 and then go in to grab the FSH for days 7-11, scans and bloods on day 11, then most likely insemination on day 14, as per usual.

Not much planned for the weekend, going to the football again thanks to my wonderful boss. He lent us his season passes to see the Qld Reds Vs NZ Crusaiders last weekend and this weekend its the Qld Reds vs NSW Waratahs. We had a pretty good night at the football last time so I am looking forward to this game heaps. I love my boss. Oh and I have only been there 2 months and the pay review I was getting at 3 months came a month early and he has given me a $5000 per annum pay rise already!! He is absolutely impressed with me, he thinks I am wonderful! I think he is pretty ok too... So much happier working for him than the government I can tell you.

Ho hum...

2008-05-05T14:20:00.005+10:00

Well not much going on in our household... just waiting for the 15th May, Kim is booked in for her Lap & Dye. She had a D & C with the miscarriage last year in April so i guess nothing much else could be happening in there, but at least we'll see if there is any endometriosis and get her tubes checked out. Dr H said there really isn't any reason to check her FSH levels on day 3, that she is ovulating fine etc... what do you guys think? I mean just because you ovulate doesn't mean that she doesn't have poor egg quality or low ovarian reserve. I mean I have poor egg quality and a good FSH at 6.

Other than that we are counting down the list of things to do before we go to Malta on June 19th. Kim is only a permanent resident, not an Australian citizen so she has to have her returning resident visa renewed before we go or she wont be allowed back in and that would suck...

K-Mart had a sale recently and I got 40% off our luggage! Bargain! I have my passport, dont need a visa for Malta, tickets are paid for and work is prepared for me to go for 5 weeks even though I only started my new job there on 12th March.

Really enjoying it there, such a change from the public health system I can tell you. Private land is so much different. Getting to know the patients there, well I have a good rapport with them and the specialist I work for. He can be a bit moody, but as long as you keep him organised he's happy.

We sold our rental property in Melbourne and the settlement date is on 30/05/08 so thats good news, will make saving for IVF a breeze. Apart from that its just work rest and play... Went to Bribie Island yesterday to do a spot of fishing. Caught a few undersize whiting and thats about it.

Not pregnant...for the 13th time

2008-04-21T20:59:00.006+10:00

Well we're out, Kim got AF after two neg HPT's on day 12 and 13 and straight after she tested on day 13 post IUI she got it.... she normally gets them on day 12 so at least her LP was a day longer, although that got our hopes up... again.

Kim really wants to try again this month, but if she does she would have to start the clomid tomorrow.... inseminate in 2 weeks (around 5th May) and we would be testing 2 weeks later (around 19th May).. If we got pregnant, we would get our 7 week viability ultrasound 3 weeks after that (around 9th June) and we would leave to go to Malta for 5 weeks 10 days after that (on the 19th June).

Thing is last time we didnt even get to 7 weeks trouble. If that were to happen again I would hate for it to happen while we are on holidays and also at Kim's sisters wedding and while overseas without Dr H. So i guess I have just spelled out why we shouldn't try again until we get back from Malta on 24th July.

Or.... we could just throw caution to the wind and just go for it. I mean we could have the 7 week scan and a 8 week scan and a 9 week scan before we leave and if things are ok with a heartbeat etc etc at 9 weeks we could just go and enjoy our holiday beamingly pregnant (more likely worried the whole time).

Otherwise I guess we are on a 3 month break. In the meantime we could schedule a Laparoscopy to check for Endometriosis and also check Kims tubes with the dye test. But before that Kim needs to have CD3 bloods done to check her FSH levels. Thats never been done before either. She has been checked for ANA and ACA's because of the miscarriage but is there anything else you guys can think of that we can check if we decide to take a break??

Kim's 8th IUI begins...

2008-04-12T13:44:00.007+10:00

Well we had the IUI on Tuesday and you will never believe what happened.... Dr H came out to the waiting room and handed me the vial of you know what and he popped it my hand and told me to keep it warm. I didn't have a look until we got into his rooms and he had handed it to me upside down and the lid wasn't tightly screwed on and some leaked out on my hand, gross... but he said there was still plenty enough in there to get someone pregnant...lets just hope it was enough to get Kim pregnant.

I asked if he could use another one and he said he didn't have any vials of our donor left in his rooms, which was weird because the donor co-ordinator said she was sending over 5 vials but she only sent over 2. Luckily there is a new sperm lady at our clinic and we went to see her to find out how come the last girl only sent over 2 vials when she told us she would send over 5...anyhow the new girl apologised and sent another 5 over to our dr's rooms so now we have 5 more vials instead of having only 3 left (free aussie donor - as opposed to having to choose a $800/vial american donor because we aren't doing IVF). GO free sperm!!

Mum has had her hysterectomy a week early due to a cancellation and she ended up having it done abdominally. Good news is that it had only just turned to cancer and she shouldn't need to have radium or chemo. Incidently, on her CT abdomen, they found a nodule on her adrenal gland. She was referred to an endocrinologist and he came to see her in hospital and said he would see her in June to do bloods to see if it is active. If it is it has to come out, if not they will just keep an eye on it. It could me malignant, but it might not be. Apparently the blood tests will confirm if it is producing cortisone or something... So it is good and maybe not so good news for mum. But at least the operation is over and done with and she got home yesterday.

In other news i am now the proud owner of a scooter. It is a Yamaha Vino 50cc. It is so hot!!! I rode it to work yesterday and i did good. I was a bit worried about getting it home in peak hour traffic on Thursday, but i got home alive. Seen as how i have never ridden one before. I have ridden motor bikes before, but not for a long time and not very well when i did. But it was easy!!! It looks like a little harley all the black and chrome!! So this is my new mode of transport to work in the city. Much better than riding the train i can tell you.

Oh it's to dye for darling...

2008-03-26T23:28:00.007+10:00

Rang Dr H and he said that after this attempt, if it doesn't work, Kim should have a Laparoscopy done in May... to see if maybe she has some endometriosis and to check both tubes are ok. It certainly is a possibility, she has god awful period pains that last for nearly her whole period. He said that even a small amount can make a big difference. At least by then we will be covered by our private health insurance. We might be able to squeeze in one more IUI after the Lap & Dye before we go to Malta on the 19th June.... if we don't get pregnant by then, it's back to saving for IVF when we get back from the trip.

The house in Melbourne is up for sale so hopefully that sells and that will free up a heap of money each month, so shouldn't take too long... hopefully. We are tired of TTC, but we still want a baby so very much. Can't even think about giving up. Kim says maybe we weren't meant to have a baby. I just told her that if we don't try we will never know. I still think that if we don't get pregnant with IVF then there is always the donor embryo option. The waiting list is long, but age is no factor if you get an embryo from a young donor. Waited this long so why not?

Not pregnant...for the 12th time

2008-03-24T19:34:00.009+10:00

Kim just got her periods... 2 days early... Back to the drawing board... Try no. 13 begins with 100mg Clomid day after tomorrow... Not taking any notice of any sort of pregnancy symptoms next time... Must only pee on stick at 14 dpo and blood test when and only when the pee stick is positive... I've been sewing nappies like a mad woman... Fucking typical... Fucking sucks!!!!!!

9dp IUI and counting...

2008-03-21T17:08:00.002+10:00

Psst!!! Kim has sore boobs, extremely sore nipples and she felt sick after eating dinner last night (i didn't) and she feel asleep on the couch by 8pm, she had all the same symptoms last time she was pregnant. Last night she was 8dpo and today is 9dpo and tomorrow she is 10dpo...ok well you get the point...still counting LOL!

Good News Week!!

2008-03-11T11:32:00.010+10:00

Ok so the scan yesterday revealed that Kim has 2 huge follicles on the right side and a couple of tiny ones on the left side, but nothing that will develop. So we triggered last night and the insemination is tomorrow morning, CD14. Perfect! We didn't bother finding out E2 levels and driving ourselves nuts with facts, but she still required a trigger, so no natural surge, but the follicle measurements were :

1 x 16.9
1 x 16.5

So Dr H is pretty happy and sure that both eggs will release... So we are in with double the normal chances!!!

Mum's hysterectomy is booked for the 14th April. She agreed to be part of a study that compares recovery/complications of Laprascopically Assisted Vaginal Hysterectomy and Abdominal Hysterectomy, so she won't know until the day which she gets. If she didn't go in the study she would have no options, she would have to have it done abdominally. So being part of the study gets her a chance to have the less invasive surgery.

The other news is I have a new job!! I am now a sexatary!! Ok not so much sexy but a secretary none the less to a prominent ENT Surgeon in the flash part of town! Don't know how i managed it but he wants me to start tomorrow (found out i had the job this morning) and he is happy for me to still go to Malta in June!!

I get a big pay out from the hospital in lieu of long service leave and my annual leave, which is mighty good because its all up abouty 500 hours!!! So that will be goin straight into the holiday account for sure and we can stress less about money on our holiday!! So its all good here!! (At the moment... my life goes in MAJOR ups and downs, as you may have noticed...)

Hot Mama!!!

2008-03-08T15:27:00.006+10:00

Ok symptoms so far.... Hot flushes, check.. Headaches, check.. Bloatedness, check.. Pains in ovaries, check.. Teary for no good reason, check..

So everything seems on track with the Clomid so far, Kim is currently CD10 today and we go in for the first scan and bloods at 7am Monday. I hope there is at least 2 if not 3 follicles and she hasn't started ovulating by the time we get there.

You see Kim got her period at about 4pm, so we counted the next day as CD1, as recommended by our doctor. Then she would normally get scanned on CD11, which falls on a Sunday, so we will be going in Monday for the scan on CD12.

Not that she has ever been close to ovulating on her own by CD12, she always gets the HCG shot the evening of CD12 and inseminated in the morning of CD14. But if you take into account that she got her period in the afternoon and that we are going in for the first bloods on CD12 instead of CD11, i feel like it is cutting it close...

Anyway, what can we do about it... Nothing. So don't worry about it right? .... Yeah, right... we won't worry about it....NOT!!!!!!!

In other news we have booked our tickets to Malta and i have an appointment on Tuesday to submit my application for a passport. So it really feels like we are going to Malta in June for a month or so now we have booked the tickets and paid for them. I am so sick with nerves about travelling overseas, getting a passport, organising travel insurance, meeting Kim's family for the first time...

Kim's younger sister will be getting married while we are there and also all of Kim's family that live in the United States will be travelling there as well. At least i will be around some people who speak English... I mean they all speak English, but some are bilingual and trilingual and in Malta i guess they revert to Maltese more often than not. Whenever Kim talks to her mum on the phone they speak Maltese... even tho Maltese isn't her mum's first language. She was born in the states to Maltese born parents...

Besides, this will be a coming out experience for Kim to most of her family, her immediate family know, but have only really tried to come to terms with it since Kim and i have been together. Never mind the last 20 years that Kim has actually been out. They just kept hoping it was a phase she was going through. When we both show up in Malta, it will be more in their face meeting me, the woman that lives with and sleeps with their daughter/sister/niece etc etc...

I just hope it isn't too uncomfortable. I can accept that they don't like that Kim is gay. I can accept that they don't want to know anything about our relationship, or want us to have children even. I just hope they can learn to accept that i am here for good. I am no phase she is going through, i am her life partner.... for life...

Kim's 7th IUI begins...

2008-02-29T22:13:00.008+10:00

Well it is officially CD2 today for Kim and she has started the Clomid 100mg... we go in on CD12 on Monday the 10th March for the scan and bloods. Lets hope we get a couple of nice juicy follicles!!!

I am now on long service leave from my job... and between me and you i am looking for another job between now and when i am supposed to go back on 12th May. 10 years is too long to be in the one place, and its time for a change.

Have gone to a few recruiting agencies this week, but Monday i have two job interviews, one with a private psychiatrist as an admin officer/receptionist and one with the radiologist dept of a private hospital as an accounts clerk.

I also have put in for an accounts position with G*H*D Hair Head Office in their finance department obviously, so i am really mixing it up with my options.

Worse comes to worse i have my old job to fall back on, but i'm pretty confident that i won't have to go back. Goodbye shift work, hello new surroundings, workmates, boss etc etc, wish me luck!!!

Exhaling...

2008-02-24T16:34:00.007+10:00

Ok mum didnt have the biopsy because the very experienced gynae-oncologist could see that she didnt have a tumor, she has complex severe hyperplasia. In english that means that she has a very thick endometrium that has some cells that are adenocarcinoma. She is on the turning point of having endometrial cancer. Which means the cure is total hysterectomy. So i don't know what the vascular mass was that showed up on the ultrasound (although it could be a fibroid)... We don't know why mums liver function isn't great either, but the doctor admitted that it wasn't anything to worry about right now. So much for his initial thoughts about it being a secondary cancer or whatever. Thank God.

I went to the doctors with mum and asked if when they do the hysterectomy if they could biopsy the abdominal lymph nodes (just in case) but they dont do that routinely. Because the doctor doubts very much that the cancer has grown to more than 50% thickness of wall of the uterus, there is no point in disturbing the lymph nodes, it would do more harm than good...

So basically they will check the uterus wall during her hysterectomy and decide then... less than 50% no lymph nodes dissection or biopsies, more than 50% they will take the nodes and mum will have to have chemo, which she will agree to have... but she refuses to have radium. She said she can handle being sick, but not frying her bowel and bladder so that she is a shitty/pissy mess. She would rather die than end up like that she said.

But i myself doubt that it will come to chemo. Like he said, they were hovering on even diagnosing cancer. SOME of the endometrial cells were adenocarcinoma, but they were highly differentiated, meaning it isn't an aggressive or invading cancer yet.

So some good news for a change. Looks like my mum is going to be ok after she has the hysterectomy. After we walked out of the doctors office we went for a coffee and on the way to the cafeteria we put our arm around each other and skipped all the way down the hall. She and I were so relieved. I think it meant alot to mum that i went to the doctors with her.

She wouldn't have understood half of what he said, like no sign of metastasis on the CT scan, differentiated cells on the pathology etc.. not to mention incidental diagnosis of Mild Diverticulitis of the Sigmoid Colon... but she had already figured out that some foods didnt sit well with her, so luckily she avoids most of the bad foods anyway... just a few more to cut out now she has a diagnosis for her touchy bowel. 50% of people over 60 have it anyway, so its no big deal.

In TTC news today is the 24th, Kim will probably start the Clomid in about 5 or 6 days.... now we are so close to trying again after so long, the closer it gets the slower the days pass..

An Update.. of sorts..

2008-02-15T17:33:00.008+10:00

Well mum had her d&c, she did not have a laparoscopy, nor did she have a biopsy and we dont know why. The lady that was first cab off the rank on the theatre list had some pretty full on complications and ended up in intensive care, so that pushed the rest back a fair bit. So by the time mum was copus mentus, the doctor had gone home and the nurse in recovery just said that all they did was a d&c. They gave her a script for Provera without telling her what it was for and sent her home with no answers whatsoever.

She got a letter in the mail a few days later to say that they had booked her in for a CT scan of her abdomen on wednesday next week. She then has an appointment with her specialist the next day to discuss treatment options. Talk about leaving you on tenderhooks.

We saw Dr H on monday and we are now armed with a script for Clomid 100mg, now we just have to wait for Kims cycle to start again, she is currently mid cycle, so about 2 weeks to go till happy-pill time.

Our donor has nearly reached his family limit, so we were allowed only 5 more vials sent to our Dr's office. So we figure we will use 3 vials for IUI with 100mg clomid and save the last two vials for IVF. Otherwise we will have to go with a US donor, which will cost us about $800 per vial per cycle. So after these 5 vials we are cut off from using an aussie donor. Sucks but heres hoping we get pregnant before then.

So in about two weeks we will be starting attempt No. 12 ... 2 IUI cycles and 3 IVF cycles for me (one was converted to IUI so that really is 3 IUI's and 2 IVF's) and 6 IUI's for Kim with one pregnancy on IUI no. 2 , which ended in a miscarriage and d&c for Kim at 8 weeks. What do you think our chances really are?

I will leave you with some pics of the fur-babies. My little girl, she's all grown up now, recently celebrating her first birthday!! Mimi is so much smaller than Casper, but then again he is huge! They are both on their very own bean bag, although Casper usually hogs the bean bag and Mimi jumps up on our lounge to be with us most the time. In the pic of Jake you can just see Kim's leg in her pyjamas. Yes they are monkeys all over them and yes they do say "Let's monkey around" all over them...lol.

It's raining again...

2008-02-09T06:55:00.000+10:00

My mother has advanced adenocarcinoma of the uterus and upper cervix. We found out for sure yesterday. Well she had been having abnormal bleeding (she is way past menopause at 67) since before xmas, but she didnt go to the doctors about it until 3 weeks ago. First she went to her local doctor who performed a "high" pap smear test. Then she went to a specialist and had another test, a chest xray, an ultrasound and blood tests.

The tests all came back yesterday that were taken last week. She has a thickened endometrial lining and a vascular mass within the uterus and her pap has tested positive for adenocarcinoma cells. There are no squamous cells present which there usually is in uterine cancer 80 percent of the time. This is good and bad. Squamous cell carcinoma is really aggessive cancer. So its good that she doesn't have that.

The type of cancer that mum does have arises in glandular and mucuous tissue. Her blood tests revealed that her liver function is not good, therefore he suspects that the uterine/cervical cancer may be a secondary tumor and that it has originated in either the liver, the pancreas or the bowel. Or that it originated in the uterus and has spread to the liver or pancreas or bowel. She is also describing 'pressure' on her bladder. This is bad.

She last had a pap smear at 65 and went to have one at 66 when her doctor told her that she was past having to have pap smears, even tho he had been prescribing her estrogen for years for her 'hot flushes' without monitoring her for uterine/ovarian cancer, which is a necessity if you are exposed to high levels of estrogen for a long time. So it has been 2 years since her last pap smear.

We had't been getting along all that well after my dads death, but she has been coming over for coffee and giving me little things (she does this when she feels bad) and she helped with unpacking the house a bit, acting as if nothing ever happened, so i did as well, just to keep the peace with my one living parent. Now this.

Monday she goes for a D&C and a laparoscopy. Then they will decide on whether she has radical hysterectomy or a partial hysterectomy, they will take biopsies of her abdominal lymph nodes, do a washout of her pelvic cavity to look for cancer cells, as well as have a good look around.

Mum said she will consent to the surgery but will not have radium or chemotherapy. She figures if she is that far gone she may as well enjoy what ever life she has left without being as sick as a dog. The other thing is that she might just have high cervical cancer that has progressed to the uterus and that is all, which is 'cured' by having the hysterectomy, as long as it is still within the uterus and has not perforated the uterine wall.

Her surgery is the same day as our first appointment back with Dr H. I have night shift sunday night and finish work at 7 in the morning and mum has to be at the hospital at 10.30am and our appointment with the sperm lady is at 10.50am and Dr H is at 11.10am. Then i go home and "sleep" until mums husband rings me to let me know how she is. I cant go and see her until this time, because she will be in Day Surgery and you cant really visit there. So its all a wait and see game from here on in.

Looking back at this post I sound so clinical about it all. I think i may even feel rather clinical about it all. I have worked in a hospital for the past 10 years, but i would have thought that i'd be a bit more hysterical about it all, but i'm not. I don't know what or how to feel really. Sort of feel like i am in a holding pattern until after Monday's surgery anyhow.

So... happy days folks.

Photo Friday... My favorite treat!

2008-01-27T19:40:00.000+10:00

Especially in hot chocolate, where it melts and puts a gooey marshmallow "lid" on your hot chocolate... yummmm!

My Album Cover

2008-01-27T19:28:00.000+10:00

1. Click on this link. The title of the page is the name of your band.
2. Click on this link. The last four words of the final quotation on the page are the title of your album.
3. Click on this link. The third picture is your album cover.
4. Take the pic, add your band name and album title and tada! (this final step requires photo shop or other image editing software)

Let me know in the comments if you created one. If you don’t have the software for such time passing leave your results in the comments. Tell me the name of your band, the album title & describe your cover art..

Long time between drinks...

2008-01-27T13:09:00.000+10:00

I'm back and with photos. I promised pics of our new house and until i found the cable for the camera to download the pics from the camera, i somehow felt i didn't want to post until i had found it. It was in a box, one of the 8 or so boxes that are still to be unpacked, that are sitting in a storage cupboard. This is a pic of the view from our front patio.

The rest of the house is entirely unpacked tho... its just the little things now... But living in this new space is great... We had a Christmas/Kim's Birthday/Housewarming BBQ on Boxing Day (Kim's actual birthday) and had a few friends around. I was so organised i made home made potato salad, marinated the steak, made trifle for desert.. then it all came undone once everyone arrived and i was flitting around worrying the whole time. I forgot to take photos. Kim got a new fishing rod, i got photos of that tho. Here she is in our kitchen, checking out all the new tackle she received as well.

Then after we all ate i realised that i only bought down the green salad and forgot the beetroot, corn, asparagus and the potato salad... so everyone basically ate steak, sausages, rissoles and a lettuce leaf, tomato wedge and onion...hahahaha, but they finished off with yummy yummy trifle. Oh well, with all the left overs ( i majorly over-catered) we had plenty to eat for the next week, even if it was the same thing every day... Jake also enjoyed the left overs. Here he is downstairs under the house (yes we have carpet under the house) with his Kong, he takes that thing with him everywhere...

This is our HUGE bedroom..

And our open living area...

As you can see it is being "lived" in. I am loving the timber plantation blinds, the cats can get up on the window sills without me worrying about them slipping and bringing the whole blind down like in the past. We have a fire place and an airconditioner... spoilt rotten!

This is my little sewing room and i have been sewing like a champ as you can see, i have fabric everywhere, i have made about 15 fitted cloth nappies, the last four are the final version with the first 11 being changed a bit each time until i perfected it. They are still usable i guess, seen as how they will be hidden under a cover anyways. But i'm having fun sewing them and making all my friends all clucky. I have only been using flanellette and terry towelling so far. I figure i will save using more expensive fabrics for when i actually get a baby.

This is the back yard...

And on that topic, we have a new referral to our Dr finally. We made an appointment to see him on the 11th Feb to discuss our next cycle which will start the end of Feb/beginning of March. The break has been good. Feels like forever since we last ttc, which is a good thing i guess. I really needed the time off to get over my dad, not that i am over it, but at least i don't go to bed crying all the time like i did a few months ago. The investigation into the accident still has not been finished, hopefully very soon we will get some answers.

Kim feels a renewed sense of excitement about it all too, she was starting to get rather dismayed but she is over that now. Now its a matter of trying to get her back into the swing of things. She stopped taking her pre-natal vitamin for a bit, but i got her back into taking that a couple of months ago so all systems are go!

We have an appointment to see the sperm lady and if we are able to we are going to change donors. We think we have given this guy a good go with 11 attempts. Time to mix it up. We'll see what other donors are available before we make a definite decision tho.

So back to living life in two week chunks starting now. Its about 2 weeks until we see our doctor, then it will be two weeks until the start of a new cycle, then two weeks until insemination, then two weeks until we test and, well, you know the drill girls......

Sewing, sewing, sewing...

2007-11-27T10:59:00.000+10:00

Wellll... i'm spoilt. Kim bought me a brand new Janome Decor Excel II 5024 sewing machine. I went to a sewing lesson and made a cloth nappy and got so excited i started looking for a cheap machine to start sewing nappies for us and by the time you get one that is under 15 years old, you are paying around $300 anyway, with no warranty etc. So she bought me a new one. Its the same machine that i used at the lesson so i know how it works. I haven't used a sewing machine since high school, so i need plenty of practice.

I figure after i make about 25 newborn sized nappies for us, that i might venture into other fabrics that are a bit more expensive, to make some covers for us. Plus after making that many nappies i might actually be alot better at it. By then i would have paid for the sewing machine by not buying them off other people. The nurses at work that have seen my nappies, fell all over them. Its amazing how many people say they would never use cloth nappies until they see one, then its "Oh they are sooooo cute!" Can you make me some?? Here are a couple of pics of the nappies i have made so far. The green one i made at the sewing lesson and its made of flannelette and hemp terry, the blue one is the one i made at home out of flannelette and an old towel i had in the cupboard. I am buying up remnants off flannelette of ebay and buying secondhand sheets and baby blankets to cut up and practice on!!!

The Main Reason For The Move...

2007-11-25T13:58:00.000+10:00

Here is a pic of Jake! And in this photo he has the hide to poke his tongue out at us...I have managed to get the best quote ever for his flight up to us at $245. Bit of a difference from the first quote i got. I contacted about 6 different companies tho. Saving of $100 by shopping around! I love a bargain. So the big move is Friday and Jake will be flying up on Monday!! Hmm little does he know that he wont be having tinned food anymore, just kibble and left overs, not that there is ever left overs in this house, but he can have scraps etc. I dont want to be picking up stinky soft poos all over the back yard. Oh hang on, i wont be!! That can be Kim's job along with the garbage and the mowing. Oh i'm such a girl!!

We got a house!!

2007-11-17T11:47:00.000+10:00

Well our rental resume must appear much better than i thought!! We went to all those inspections and we ended up only applying for two houses. One we could live with and liked, and one that we LOVED! We ended up being approved for both houses!

The agency for the house rang one afternoon saying we were approved for the house we liked, so we said we'd take it, just in case the other application fell through. The next morning the agency for the house we LOVED rang saying we were approved, so i had to ring the first agency back and tell them we were approved for a house we preferred and let me tell you, they weren't impressed. Oh well too bad how sad, they put you through the wringer for 3 or 4 days sweating on your application, they take several applications for each property and then its tough luck if you dont get it, you have to start all over again. Then when you apply for another property they ask you if you have been refused a property in the past! I mean far out! They have no obligation to tell you why you aren't successful in getting the property, so i dont feel i have an obligation to explain myself to them.

Still the agent/house that we didnt go with, rang and left voicemail for us to call her back the next day after we rang and said we didnt want the house that was offered to us. Wonder what she wants? When i told her that we were taking another property, she was like "Oh RIGHT, i see, ok then!"... then i just said, "ok then, thanks very much anyway, bye bye!" and hung up. She could just want some feedback on the property, but seriously, as if we are going to call her back, she made me feel so uncomfortable when i rang to tell here we were taking the other house. The property has been relisted on the internet, they have taken more photos of the property and added photos of the property furnished all pretty and stuff and also putting the rent UP $10 from what we were going to pay. I mean, putting the rent up??? Anyway, i'm not in a hurry to return her call.

So onto the house we LOVE!! Its about 8 kms up the road from where we live now, so an extra few minutes drive to work for the both of us but meh.. its worth it. Its air conditioned, fully fenced, has an entertainment area out the back, a nice neat and tidy yard/garden, easy to mow lawn etc... I wish i had of saved the pictures of the rental website before they took it off, now i dont have piccies that i can show you all. But i will when we move. Which is in a couple of weeks. I'm so excited and so is Kim. She is getting quotes on getting her dog up from Melbourne (the whole reason we were moving is so we could have a house with a yard for Jake) and at the moment looks like around $345. So i'm hunting around the house looking for things i can sell off to make the money for it!!! I'm going to start packing as i go... If i'm keeping it, i'll put it in a box, if i dont want it, i'll take a picture of it and list it on ebay for a week so all our unwanted stuff will be gone before we move house!!

I'll tell you what, its certainly taking our minds of the whole TTC thing. Which we will be returning to after the Christmas break!

Ok who's a bad blogger...

2007-11-05T23:11:00.000+10:00

Well i've been super busy, hunting for a house! Its almost a full time job i tell you. The market is so competitive and you have to start early, even tho our lease doesn't end until the 17th December, we are going to look at a couple of houses tomorrow! Then another on Thursday and 4 on Saturday.

We finally decided to move out of our little flat and into a house, i bought the furniture off ebay and now i just have to find the house to go with it. I got a 2 seater and a 3 seater matching couch for $80!! Got the upholstery cleaners around to clean the bases for $75 and then i will wash the cushion covers myself and viola! New lounge suite from Freedom for $155. Well not new. But close enough. I also bought a new tv unit so now my tv and dvd etc are on it and we can use our coffee table for its intended purpose instead.

Our unit is so small it is embarrassing to invite people over, especially so when they have nowhere to sit. Its a bit sad when they have to sit on the floor with the plate in their lap!! So come Christmas that will all be history.

At the moment i am shopping for a dining table and chairs, but will hold off buying anything until we move because we just dont have the room!! You couldnt swing a cat here seriously, i tried, Casper hit all four walls of the lounge room... kidding. But yes you have to weave your way around the lounges and coffee table and tv unit, so luckily we dont have a dining room set currently.

Its dog eat dog out there in rental land, you have to go armed. Dropping into the agent's first and getting one of their applications and pre-copying any identification documents and having spare copies of written references with you so you can hand it to the agent while you are inspecting the property. Some want you to leave a weeks rent with your application!

Today i booked an inspection for a house that is available in about 3 weeks for this Wednesday and luckily i called back to ask what i would need to bring with me (references etc) and they told me that it had just been rented out... Another one isnt available until January and so i asked when i could inspect it and they said to just call a couple of weeks before it is available to see when there will be an inspection. If i did that it is likely to be already rented like the last one. So basically she said i needed to call every week until January to see if there is an inspection that week. My god. Say it with me "I hate house hunting!!!!"...

In other ebay news, i have turned it all around.. I have now become an ebay seller!!! I have sold clothes that dont fit me anymore but are still good and i have sold some beanie kid bears that sat in a cupboard doing nothing!! I have my Emily Strange sticker collection up for auction at the moment. I have sold back a skirt i bought off ebay for $4.25 for $18.50 because i didnt like it so much when i got it so i made a 300% profit!!! I'm liking selling much more than buying.. Although i did buy a hairdryer for $2.00 last night, the postage is only $4.00. Not too bad i reckon! Lets hope it works.

Predisposition to Addiction...

2007-10-20T13:04:00.000+10:00

I mentioned in my previous post about my not having any willpower or impulse control when it comes to food. I have been on a binge lately, but not with food. I have stayed about the same weight while tending to another addiction.. I have only recently acquired this addiction and hopefully it will be short-lived like most of the other addictions throughout my life.

I have been bidding and winning clothing mostly, along with some sewing items i could have got cheaper if i didnt pay for postage and went to the local haberdashery shop. But like i said, i'm starting to get addicted to shopping on ebay. I wouldnt say that i have spent an enormous amount, probably around $100 all up when i pay for the items i am currently bidding on, thats if i win the auctions.

But its the feeling i get when i am bidding that leads me to believe that i could get to like ebaying alot, like too much. I am at the moment losing an auction that ends in a couple of days for some clothing that has already gone above the amount that i am willing to pay twice, but on both occasions i have increased my bid just to beat whoever it is that is bidding against me. Now it has gone over my self-imposed $20 limit per item for near new second hand clothing. So i am now at war with my instincts to increase my bid again, just so i can win the auction. We'll see how i go with that.

My mother had a sister, who was older than her by two years. They were both placed in a catholic convent when they were aged 4 & 6 in the 1940's. My mother only has very bad memories of this place and i believe that they both came out of that place damaged. My mother likes to look down her nose at people and is a compulsive liar (but will deny this fact to the death). She has been married three times to men that she claims have abused her. My take on that is that they stayed with her for as long as they could stand it until the behaviour she displayed they could no longer bear. Each of my siblings have a different relationship with her.

My eldest sister is the closest to her, the next eldest brother has nothing to do with her, a sister and a brother have an arms length relationship with her and i now dont have anything to do with her. My eldest sister has only recently, after 50 years, opened her eyes to the truth about my mothers manipulation and lying. She played us all against each other to try and come to my fathers funeral and play the weeping widow, even though he had wanted nothing and had nothing to do with her for the past 21 years. So much so he didnt want to be in the same room as her to give away two of his daughters at their weddings.

She called all of us one by one and asked what we thought about her coming to the funeral. When we all said we didnt think it was a good idea, she told us that we didnt love her and hung up on us, then rang the next child. Then once she had us all fighting over it two days after we had lost our father, she denied ever wanting to come to the funeral, that she only wanted to travel to the town dad lived in to be nearby in case we needed her.

All of my other siblings felt guilty and questioned themselves and thought maybe they should let mum come. Except me, i stood my ground with her. Not just for my fathers wife of 15 years, whom he was very happy with, but for Dad, he wouldn't have wanted her there, so i made sure he got what he would have wanted. So now she is talking to all of us, but not me. Meh, i dont really care.

Back to her sister, she was the only other member of my family that i know of that was gay. She was beautiful. She was vivacious. She had a partner, Connie, that she adored and tragically they were involved in a car accident and Connie was killed. My auntie lost one of her kidneys and was more or less crushed down one side of her body. She was in the hospital for a year and self discharged addicted to morphine. She started partying hard in the underworld scene in Sydney's King's Cross. This led to her heroin addiction. She became someone no one in her family wanted to know anymore. Eventually she left for England when she was 28 due to a free rehabilitation program for heroin addicts there in the mid 1960's and no one has ever heard from her since.

I often think of her, even though i have never met her and wonder how much alike we might have been. Gay, on the femme side, an addictive personality, gregarious, lover of butch/soft-butch women, family outcast from time to time. I haven't had an addiction to heroin, but have had an addiction to something at any given time. Cigarettes, pot, alcohol, amphetamines, food, poker machines, now ebaying... ok so in comparison ebaying aint that bad. Still I have conquered all my past addictions, only to acquire a new one. As i get older and my priorities shift my addicitons are becoming less illegal, but its the potential to lose control that is underlying that i worry about. They are all self-sabotaging in some form, whether it be mentally, physically, emotionally, financially... I wonder when i am going to let it go and live without an addiction ...

5 down 25 to go...

2007-10-07T23:51:00.000+10:00

Ok well i do have a mini-goal on this weight loss mission and that is to lose 10kg. I am halfway there. Kim has had about a 5 kilo loss as well. I feel pretty good about it too. My clothes are a little less tight and i dont feel as bloated or as huge. So as a reward we went to breakfast today with The Beanies on the beautiful waterfront where they live and spoiled ourselves by having a totally naughty breakfast.

G and I had pancakes and ice-cream and Kim and B had bacon and eggs. We had to congratulate ourselves for sticking with (not to) this diet for 3 weeks now, plus it was awesome catching up with the girls. We are in similar boats at the same time with the baby making business and it was so good to talk about it with someone who understands exactly what its like.

Not only from a run of the mill "lesbian couple trying to have a baby" viewpoint, but a couple coping with fertility issues as well as having to have a break from trying to conceive and feeling pretty alone in the world when it comes down to it.

Although there are a myriad of blogs that seem to point to the fact that we are not alone, in alot of the blogs we have read, the couples have achieved a viable pregnancy and or have had a baby. We are still to do either. So when you spend time with other people in RL that know how it feels it is a whole other kind of support.

I decided to write this post after contemplating going to bed, but when i went in our bedroom i was faced with this...

Kim is dead to the world, doesnt even know i took this pic. Looks like my side of the bed is busy so i think i'll play some poker online until they wake up and start running up and down the hallway chasing each other all night long!

This Pretty Much Captures My Mood Today

2007-10-03T17:20:00.001+10:00

My mind is not a calculator...

2007-10-03T11:16:00.000+10:00

I've just realised that if Kim and I try to conceive again in January, we will actually be on a TTC break for 4 months not 3. In reality Kim got her periods on the 16th September, so we have only been on a break for 2 and a bit weeks. So really we have 3 and a half months to go.

I know this sounds backward but knowing our luck she would fall first try and then she would have to take a 30hr flight to Malta whilst 6 months pregnant, which is not such a good idea. So perhaps around Valentines day would be better. Which extends the break to 5 months in total. 4 and a half months to go. Friggin hell, might as well be 6 months which is half a year.

Can you tell that this break is driving me nuts... sheesh its only been two and a bit weeks out of 5 months. I hate this break shit. By the time this all transpires we will have moved into a house and adopted a menagerie and i'll be pushing puppies around in our $60 pram...

The Diet...

2007-09-27T18:17:00.000+10:00

The diet we are on is the "Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital Soup Diet". Now let me say I am terrible at dieting. Once when i was about 22 i went on Jenny Craig because i had hit 82kgs...now i'd love to be 82kg. That was the only diet I ever stuck to. I lost 12kg and then i went on a holiday and didnt bother going back on it. I've tried Tony Ferguson, hated it. I hate dieting full stop. I have pretty poor impulse control and hardly any willpower. When it comes to eating the right food and exercising anyway.

So this diet is a diet my dad went on before he had his triple bypass surgery a couple of years ago. Its is for patients that have to lose weight before having heart surgery and therefore cannot exercise due to their obvious heart problems. If you stick to the diet (I don't, Kim has) then you can lose 10-17 pounds a week. Without exercising. I dont have any heart problems, but i feel too fat to exercise. My knees hurt and my heart nearly comes out of my mouth and i cant breathe and i go all red and sweat like there is no tomorrow when i walk up the hill to my work (hence I only walk home, not to work). I have to stop 3 times (at bustops) to catch my breath and to slow my heart down. I plan on going swimming in the pool at work now that the weather is a bit warmer.

We have been on this diet for 10 days and i have lost 2.5 kilos (remember i cheat) and Kim has lost about 4kg too. Tomorrow is bananas and skim milk day so today we went out and bought a stick blender so we can make smoothies. Last week Kim ate bananas that weren't quite ripe and drank a whole 2 litre bottle of skim milk and got diarrohea!!! We also bought a new set of scales so we can measure our progress along the way.

Well its almost one month down and two to go until we are off the enforced TTC 3 month break we are on. Its going quite quickly really. Probably because we aren't TTC. No TWW or HPT's or IUI's or FSH or HCG or any of those other acronyms are taking up our time, just work and figuring out what to eat, thinking about food we cant eat, watching movies and thats about it really.

The police are just waiting for the blood results to come from the forensic centre, but all the other reports are in on Dads accident. The vehicle inspector went up and put in his report. The coroner has put in his report. The road traffic accident investigation unit has put there report in. All the witness have made a statement and so has my step-mother and the other driver. So shouldnt be too long before we get some answers about the accident and whether the other driver was drinking or taking drugs or just speeding when he crashed into my dad's car. We finally got the death certificate that said he died of "multiple mortal injuries".

It still feels pretty raw. Just today driving to the shopping centre to get the blender, i saw a shop with a big sign saying "Big Dad's Pies" and it made me cry and cry. I just have to be reminded of him and i think of the accident and what happened to him and the funeral and that i'm never going to see him again. Its just so hard getting over losing a parent. Well anyone i bet. This is just my first loss of immediate family. I know my dad wouldn't want me to still be so upset, but i cant help it. I miss him so much.

My New Tattoo

2007-09-18T19:26:00.000+10:00

Here it is, fresh from the shop, still bleeding and everything... I love it!!! (Its on the back of my calf muscle!)

Tattoos & Sleeplessness!!

2007-09-18T06:20:00.000+10:00

I can't sleep... i have been having problems sleeping for the past couple of weeks. You would have thought that i would have had a problem sleeping well before now with all the crap that's been going on but it seems to be all affecting me now.

I was prescribed some sleeping tablets the day after i found out Dad died. They have now been put into use. I think the 3 failed IUI's and 3 failed IVF's for me, Kim's miscarriage and 5 failed IUI's for her and then Dad's death have finally taken their toll. I'm alright most of the day, just trying to fall asleep is a big challenge. Then i start thinking.... and thinking... and thinking some more... this leads to crying.

Also if i wake up at some god awful hour like i did today, say 4am, the same thing happens. So I either have to drug myself an hour before bedtime or get up really early... being tired throughout the day magnifies everything as well.

My dad was in the Army when he was younger. He applied when he was 16 as a way of getting out of the boys home the government had put him and his older brother into. They put them in there because at the time his mother had 5 children and no husband. He was 8 years old when the government decided it would "help her out" to relieve her of a couple of children.

Whilst in the army he got a tattoo with some of his mates one drunken night out in Melbourne. It was a bluebird with a rose in its mouth on his forearm. After 30 odd years it was pretty hard to make out what it was because it wasn't very big and so when i asked dad he called it a "bluebird". It was more likely a swallow with its forked tail, but he was adamant that it was a "bluebird" because only men in the navy got "swallows" according to how many nautical miles they had travelled.

Well i have been quietly planning on getting a tattoo in memory of my dad. It will be a "bluebird" carrying a rose in its mouth. Except i already have far bigger tattoos then dad had and i want it to be something i can see to remind me of him. So i went to a local tattoo artist last week armed with plenty of reference material i had got off the net. He drew up the tattoo i wanted, customising it by drawing just the bluebird that i wanted. Its exactly the same as dads, just heaps bigger and more detailed. It will fit the whole of the back of my calf muscle. And I have big calf muscles. I inherited that from my dad.

Although i am short and have small hands (two things i definitely didn't get from my dad) the rest of me, apart from being female, is just like him. Everyone has always commented on it, especially at the funeral. Its scary how much i look like my dad. This is something that i have always been quite proud of. I guess i have always been dad's girl. I can remember being so little that climbing up on his lap as a toddler seemed like climbing Mt Everest. On family outings i always was either carried by Dad or I was sitting on his shoulders. My dad was a big man. Very strong. He was the heavy-weight boxing champion in the army for 9 years straight, undefeated. Put it this way, i used to have father figure dreams of Arnold Schwarzeneggar. So i've always been quite muscular. Although since starting fertility treatment i have packed on the weight so now i'm just huge.

Anyway, today is the day i get my tattoo. A bluebird carrying a rose in its mouth with the words "Dad's Girl". I can't wait, i'm so excited. Will post pictures later today for sure!!!!

Not Pregnant for the 11th time...

2007-09-17T09:29:00.002+10:00

Nah shes not pregnant. She was due for her periods on Saturday and she got them on Sunday... we sort of knew because we did a home pregnancy test on days 10,11,14 and 15 and it was negative.... so we were going to wait until Monday to go for a blood test, then she got them Sunday.

So we are on a break now for 3 months, otherwise if we tried and got pregnant in the next 3 months she would be too pregnant to get on the plane in June next year to go to Malta...

So back to the drawing board... Now that we have private health insurance we might look into getting her a laparoscopy to see if she has any endometriosis because she has very very painful periods, pains down her legs and for days and days and nausea...worth having a look.

So Kim will keep on trying doing injectables and IUI in January until we go to Malta next year. Don't know with what donor because we used the last vial we had at Dr H's office and don't know how we will go getting more free sperm from the sperm lady, we may have to move onto a different donor or go to a US donor which will cost alot more.

Then when we get back from Malta (if Kim isn't pregnant by then) our 12 month waiting period for our private health fund will be up and then I can try IVF again without it costing us an arm and a leg. So i'm looking forward to trying IVF again anyway, i'd like to have a baby myself.

Everyone i know keeps wanting to know why i want to go thru IVF when Kim appears to be more fertile than me, but no one knows what its like not being able to have a baby on your own and I am 35, I think i know what i want. I think they see IVF as too much money to spend on having a baby. Easy for those who just have to look at a penis and they fall pregnant hey.

So thats the news...

Counting Chickens...

2007-09-06T22:02:00.000+10:00

I know.... we shouldn't have, but we did... We bought a pram. It was meant to be. Let me explain.

Kim accidentally took her workmates store keys home with her this afternoon, so she had to go back to work to give them back and get her own. I went along for the ride and we felt hungry so decided to go into the shopping centre where she works and have something to eat. While we were sitting there eating we saw K-Mart across from us and i just said for no particular reason, "Hey, do you want to go and have a look at prams?".. We decided we would, finished our meals and off we went.

We saw a Steelcraft Runabout Layback Stroller, originally priced at $229.00. It had all the features we wanted in a pram, reversible handle, disassembled with one hand, aluminium light frame, not ridiculously expensive, not too bulky, converts from layback position for a newborn, sits up to stroller position for a toddler etc. They were having a 20% off sale, so foolishly we decided that we wanted to buy the pram while it was on sale. I mean it was only $185 and we wanted to act like we are going to have a baby some time in the future...

After we made the decision to buy it, Kim was looking at the boxed ones trying to find the colour we wanted (Black) and came across a box that had the same pram but it was slightly different. After some comparison and then consultation with the sales assistant, we discovered that the pram was the prior model to the pram we were looking at buying and was pretty much exactly the same as the newer model but remarkably marked down to $75.00. It was the last one left of the older model of the pram we were going to buy for $185.00. Then we found out that the 20% discount applied to this marked down model as well, so the end price was $60.00. We couldn't pass it up. If god forbid we never use the pram, its was only $60.00!!!!!!

So now in our lounge room, after some initial hassles putting the thing together, we have a brand new pram!!! Now all we need is a baby... anytime now would be good. It was just funny that I just out of the blue decided to look at prams, like specifically prams. I didn't know K-Mart were having a sale, i didn't think we would seriously buy one today even. Whats more freaky is we decided to buy the current model and because Kim was pulling boxes down from the shelf looking for a black one rather than a blue one, she came across this bargain which was sitting behind the newer models... I swear it was meant to be!

No more needles for the rest of the year!!

2007-09-04T13:34:00.000+10:00

We had the IUI on Friday as planned and for luteal support this cycle Kim is having one progesterone pessary each night and a 1500 Pregnyl injection 4 days post IUI which is today. I just gave her the last needle of the year and it hurt! Kim reckons that she'd better be pregnant because it hurt so much that she doesn't want to ever have one again!

The IUI went smoothly as usual. Dr H says that she is an easy patient and the cannula goes in up to 4 cm painlessly and thats really good. He gave us the vial in the waiting room and we both took turns at defrosting it in our hands. This sample looked a little over the usual, so hopefully it will mean more sperm plus more eggs = at least one baby!!! Kim was uncomfortable with ovarian pain during the IUI, just like Dr H likes her to be... he always asks "Are you in agony?? Good, thats what i like to hear".

Kim complained of ovarian pain during the night before the IUI and Dr H said that was good too. He said lots of women say to him during their egg pick ups for IVF that they think they have already ovulated...but then the eggs are still there. So i think the pain the night before the IUI was just her follicles growing a little more.

I got a chance to look through Kim's paperwork and in the past on day 12 her E2 levels have been 900 and something and this cycle it was 1100 and something. So he is pretty confident that there are at least 2 if not 3 mature eggies in there. Her progesterone level was 2 and her LH was 7.

When it was all over we said our goodbyes and I told Dr H that we were going to have a 3 month break after this cycle so we might not see him for a while, but he just said "See you for the pregnancy test in 2 weeks".

So now we are currently 4 days post IUI. We are still relaxed about it tho. We have done this so many times that it is almost becoming second nature. Maybe a positive test will take us by surprise. Anyhow my darling has just cooked me lunch so i'd best be going and eating it then going to work. Another day another dollar... much rather stay at home with my girl tho.

And in case you were wondering...

2007-09-02T14:07:00.000+10:00

Look at how well our fur babies are getting along now!!!

Snuggling up on the spare room bed!

Casper says "Come here and get your ears cleaned out Mimi" (or else)!

Ok you can share my bed, even tho i don't even fit in it by myself anymore!

Kim's 6th IUI begins...

2007-08-29T22:38:00.003+10:00

A post from the other fonaholic!!

I thought I'd mention to everyone that I finally had to inject myself and it wasn't pretty! Megan and I went to Dr H this morning and as usual he said to me, "Lie down and think of England." We had the scan and discovered a few surprises... two follicles of about 17.9mm each, one on each side and another 2 around 15mm and 2 around 14mm. Dr H seems to think that the other 4 are insignificant... here's hoping he's right cos I am not looking forward to having quads! I had a blood test and Megan called Dr H at elevenish and was told that tonight was the night for the trigger injection. So Megan prepared the mix for me and I took the syringe to work (after she worried that I might squirt it out accidentally and so putting it into a "safe" container for me) I set the alarm on the mobile for five thirty and when that went off I stuck the needle in my stomach, only problem was I didn't have Megan saying our One, Two, Jab chant so it felt more painful than usual ... but I survived.

The more times we try the more I realise how hard this is on the emotions. It's like a roller coaster ride... you start by hoping, then think you have all these symptoms and then maybe not and then maybe and then.. so far not much happening. BUT It Will Happen!

So talking about hard ... as you all know, I'm not the main author of this blog but I do read alot of your blogs and me being the Optimist I say to you all HANG IN THERE!!!!

Not Pregnant...for the 10th time

2007-08-18T17:08:00.002+10:00

CD1 today... rang Dr H and asked him what he thought we should do next cycle. Another cycle on 100mg Clomid or just go to injectables... He thought a combined cycle. So we are going on 50mg Clomid CD 2-6, then we go in to see him on day 7 for a scan and to get the FSH to have from day 7 to when ever the follicles get big enough, most likely day 12. This reduces the risk of getting too many follicles by being on the FSH for too long. Plus hopefully he will steal the FSH for us if we only have to have it for a few days. The clomid will give us a few follicles and the FSH will make them all grow at the same rate, rather than a dominant follicle taking over.

We are totally gutted, we really thought this would be the one. We are really getting worried that the last pregnancy was just a fluke and that maybe we wont get a pregnancy ever again. Imagine if we have this much trouble getting pregnant and we have another miscarriage. I think that will be enough to make us give up and look at embryo adoption seen as how regular adoption is not allowed for gay couples in our country. Hell we cant even get married in our own country. It just seems so unfair. In every way.

Goin to the country...

2007-08-12T12:48:00.000+10:00

We're off to spend a few days with my friend Kaz out in the sticks...about 3 hours inland from where we are on the coast. It's her birthday so we think a few drinks are in order. I should say that Kim doesnt drink even when she isn't in the TWW so correction, i think a few drinks are in order for me.

Dad liked a drink. He liked them much more when he was younger but he slowed right down in his old age. But he did like to make his own rum. I have a keepsake to remind me of dad. A flask. I filled it with his rum. He used to keep it in the remote control holder that hung from his favorite chair in the lounge room so he could pour a nip into his afternoon coffee, while he sat down and watched his daily soap. Bold and the Beautiful. Yes, my dad loved it. Hard to believe but he used to get right into it. If he and his wife were out and about shopping, they would drop into a friends place just to watch it and have a rum coffee. Yes 4.30pm weekdays was a special time for him and the tv and his flask of rum.

Not much else in the way of news...no signs yet, but we are only 6 days post IUI. Kim had some sharp pains last night in the uterus area. God only knows what that means. We like to think it was implantation, we can only hope.

Really really bad week...

2007-08-03T15:02:00.000+10:00

My dad was killed instantly in a car accident last thursday. He lived about 4 hours from where i live so i had to race up there to help organise his funeral and support my step mum and the rest of my family. He was 73. It was just horrible. There is going to be an inquest into his death so we dont know yet but it is likely the other driver lost control of his vehicle because he was speeding. So there had to be a post mortem and by the time we got to see him it was a week later and it didnt look like my dad.

The funeral was horrible, but what can you expect. I am so so sad for my dad and what happened to him, i cant really concentrate with what is going on with our cycle, but we went ahead with it anyway because kim had already finished the clomid and we didnt know what else to do. Leave her with a few follicles that could turn into cysts without the trigger?? I dont know what would have happened, but anyway we cant get excited or really expect much from this cycle. In short we have 3 follies and we trigger tomorrow night and have the iui on monday...

Big thankyou to MMG and LM for all their love, support and help looking after Casper and Mimi and the fish while we were away.

Kim's 5th IUI begins...

2007-07-24T23:07:00.002+10:00

Well so far Kim has taken two lots of 100mg of Clomid and the side-effects are pretty much the same as she has for 50mg (headaches, moody, teariness) but she got the side effects on the evening of day one of meds as opposed to a few days into it. Last night she was crying because there was a bus crash on Neighbours and that people were going to die and be written out of the show.

From what i can find on the net, apparently you have to keep upping the dose of clomid to get the same amount of follicles as last cycle... i think your body gets used to it after an initial accumulative effect. So hopefully we will only get 3 or 4 follicles. I think if Kim has more than 4 follicles Dr H will cancel the cycle. He says that in his proffession everyone considers its just bad manners to get a triplet pregnancy. He doesnt mind twins tho and i think he is rather famous for them. At this stage we dont mind the idea of twins, if it is going to be this hard to get pregnant, why not complete our family in one pregnancy.

Well we ended up taking Mimi to the vets last week and got some anti-scours medicine for her. The vet stuck a cotton bud up her bum and smeared it on a slide and the poor little thing was shedding intestinal cells. So she got some powdered cat gatorade for her drinking bowl to keep her electrolytes up and some stuff that we had to squirt into her mouth that made her froth at the mouth which was fun. But she is now pooing normally AND in the litter box, much to our relief.

We had a little bit of a cleaning frenzy today, the whole place is spring cleaned and the dusty grungy laundry downstairs has been cleaned spick and span by Kim. The owner of the unit we live in is coming to visit tomorrow and so we thought we should give the place a good going over. We are seriously getting rid of a lot of old crap that we had stored in the various wardrobes and cupboards. We also rearranged the spare room and dismantled one of the computer tables that was in there which gave us much more room to move. Simplifying our lives by cleaning out the cupboards and draws and giving them a good clean while we are at it sort of feels refreshing in more ways than one.

Not Pregnant... for the 9th time

2007-07-21T22:48:00.002+10:00

Kim got her period today 12 dpo. Rang Dr H and told him and his response was "Fuck!". We are starting 100mg Clomid on Monday. He said we might be overdoing it a bit because she responds well to 50mg, but we will see how we go. Yeah, here we go again. We both had a few little cries today, went shopping after work together and bought lots of bad stuff like chocolate and icecream and chips and dip. This is getting really hard to keep doing. Thank you everyone for your best wishes tho... i'm off to bed to cuddle my girl.

The Stats...

2007-07-09T13:47:00.000+10:00

Ok well we had the IUI this morning. Since then Kim has been having ovarian pains so we are pretty sure the timing was good. For those interested in the details...

CD2-6 @ 7am
-50mg Clomid

CD11 Bloods & Scan @ 10am
-Estrogen 700
-LH 12
-2 x 20mm follicles on the left; 1 x 13mm follicle on the right

CD12 Bloods @ 9am
-Estrogen 985
-LH 15 (start of natural rise)
-HCG 5000iu @ 6pm

CD14
-IUI @ 8am

On CD 17 we will be injecting HCG 3000iu for luteal support, then there will be nothing to do except wait... until the blood test on 16dpo which is Thursday 25th July. Nothing to do except invest a small fortune in HPT's i suspect... We have a two pack of Discover tests in the medicine cupboard which we will not touch until at least 14dpo. Ok that we will at least TRY not to touch until 14dpo. Oh shit who are we trying to fool here. Wish us luck!!!

Now thats a bit better!!!

2007-07-06T14:56:00.000+10:00

This morning we went for the scan and blood test. We have 3 follicles!! 2 x 20mm and 1 x 13mm. Estrogen is only 700 and she is still pre-ovulatory so we go for another blood tomorrow so most likely will trigger tomorrow night and insem on monday morning. Kim was really happy she got her magic number 3.

Kim's 4th IUI begins...

2007-07-04T18:58:00.002+10:00

Ok i have finished a run of 5 night shifts so i have slept all day today, meaning i will be up all night watching cable. The joys of shiftwork. At the moment we are in limbo waiting for Friday to see how the Clomid has done this time around. At least with injectables you get to do something everyday other than take a pre-natal vitamin. They say the side effects of Clomid get better as you get used to it, but i reckon that Kims have gotton worse. She has a hot flush every 20 mins and she is short and a bit cranky at times and the headaches... they are really bad for her.

This is the 4th time on 50mg of Clomid and she gets a varied response. First cycle was 2 follicles, second was 3 follicles (got one baby) and the third, even with a boost of 112 iu of FSH for 3 days, we only got one follicle. Dr H thought that seen as how Kim ovulates on her own, that putting it up to 100mg could over stimulate her and get more than 5 follicles, which is pushing his limit. He wont inseminate if there are too many follicles for fear of Kim getting pregnant with triplets or quads. God forbid if we have to cancel a cycle because of too many follicles. We want to be pregnant NOW!!!

Mimi has diarrohea. She has been farting wet farts all over the house. Especially on beds. We have been washing bed clothes constantly. She only gets dry food and water. Its a bit hard to starve her for a day without starving Casper and he lets it be known if his bikkie bowl is empty. I am giving it one more day and if she is no better by Friday we are taking her to the vets to see if they can give her something to block her up. Maybe its because of the worm medication they gave her last time we went, but Casper is fine. She is banned from bedrooms at the moment until she can make it to the litter box in time. She hates this. She cries and cries if we shut her out. So i have been sleeping on the lounge with her during the day while i have been on night shift. Mothering a kitten is hard work when they are sick. At least with a baby you can put a nappy on them.

Speaking of motherhood, a big congratulations goes out to Ruth & Michelle and Jude & Jenn on the arrival of their little ones. I'm jealous but so happy for you guys at the same time. Gives me hope even if you are driving me crazy with cluckiness. Watch out parents in the waiting room at work!!!!

Not pregnant... for the 8th time

2007-06-27T21:28:00.002+10:00

Sorry to keep you all in suspense but our ADSL modem died and we have been waiting for a new one to come from Optus by courier.

Any way the title of my post denotes where we are up to in the TTC game that it is. We are not pregnant. We tested from 10 dpo until 16 dpo with no BFP in sight... still we went and had the blood test done on tuesday and it was less than 3! Later that day Kim got her period.

Nevermind, we are going at it again (wish we could!!) still only on 50mg of Clomid and hoping for a stronger response this time around. If we don't get more than one follicle we may change the dose or move onto injectables, but we will see how Kim goes this time. We go in for a scan next friday so fingers crossed. Dr H has had 2 weeks off, he had to go get the ol' prostrate dealt with during our TWW. I hope he is ok. He joked with us for weeks that none of his patients gave him any sympathy, saying that most of us would be happy he would be pissing blood for a week, sort of payback for the pain and suffering he inflicts upon us. We had to ring another one of the doctors at his clinic to get our results, but when we were in getting our blood test, we found out that he is recuperating at home and he is well and will be back at work next week so that was a relief. I'd hate for anything to happen to him. Have grown quite fond of the ol' man really.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, it was really killing me not to be able to post the news. I really miss you all when i am not "connected"... Mandy thanks so much for checkin in on us, i'm sorry about your results too sweety, but we have to just keep getting back on that big ol' horse hey!

As for the fur babies, Casper got me really worried by not eating and being really depressed so i looked in his mouth and saw that he had an ulcer on his lip! So off to the vets we went and as soon as we got there he perked right up. I took Mimi too but he got all the attention (even if it did mean the rude shock of a thermometer up the butt!) but it seem to do the trick! He has been a changed little man since we got back from the vets... Sleeping on the bed with all of us (even Mimi) and he plays tag with her up and down the hallway now and he is much more like he was before! It was a real relief i can tell you because i hated seeing him so unhappy. So some antibiotics for his lip (caused by his slight overbite and big fangs rubbing) a worming tablet for him and Mimi and we are now a much happier family.

Does My Cat Need Meds??

2007-06-18T21:42:00.001+10:00

Ok well of course i knew that Casper was going to get his nose out of joint, its only natural. But he is bordering on depression. He hardly interacts with us, he hides most of the time. He is tolerating Mimi (yes i called her Mimi) but he doesnt faze her and thats the problem. If they are getting treats she pushes in and tries to eat his too and he just cowers and pouts and looks really sad. Its only been a week... we will give it some more time but i feel really sorry for him.

Mimi is gorgeous and loving and being all kitten like playing with all the toys Casper had hidden under the lounge. She sleeps under the covers and she has to sit right on your chest not just your lap. Casper never really sat on our lap unless we picked him up and then he would only stay for a little while. He used to roll around on the floor and purr and stuff and if we called him handsome he'd do it more and more showing off and he does none of that now. He is just staying in the spare room all the time on the bed, almost under the covers, hiding. So i think we have far to go in our new two cat household.

Well its 8 dpo and so far Kim has had crampy feelings in her belly and really itchy nipples. Not going to speculate about whether it is a symptom of early pregnancy, maybe pregnant women just so happened to have itchy boobs at the time. Last time we tested at 10dpo and got a negative then a positive on 12dpo. So i thought that if we waited until at least 12dpo we would be better off. But then i think what happens if we test at 12dpo and its negative... we will be devastated.

Ok maybe devastated is too harsh a word, mightily disappointed to say the least. Maybe we were lucky to get a positive at 12dpo last time and we could go on to have a positive at 14 dpo and be disappointed for 2 days for nothing. Which really points to the fact that we should really wait until at least 14 dpo before we test at all. But thats another 6 days and if we tested at the same time as last time it will only be 4 days. So it really doesnt matter when we test we are still going insane not knowing if it has worked. I would just rather the not knowing at all sort of insane than the disappointed, probably not pregnant twist, not knowing for sure sort of insane.

I just did a spell check, because i'm a virgo, and i realised that not only have i said the word disappointed now 4 times, but i also spell it wrong every time. Maybe thats a sign. You create your own universe and maybe instead of gearing myself up for the negative spin, i should be saying how lucky we are to have gotten through this all with no other problems. I mean Kim is healthy and relatively young. It wasnt a molar pregnancy or an ectopic. She didnt get Ashermans Syndrome from the D&C and she got knocked out for it thank god, some gals arent so lucky. At at the end of the day, if i have my girl still in one piece, i'm happy. Even if my cat is currently depressed. He'll get over it and if this cycle doesnt work, so will we.