i've moved ;)

i have moved my blog to, yes you guessed it, wordpress :)

dakota mentioned that wordpress seemed to offer more options and she kind of wanted us to move over there... and she is a maniac with the metrics, LOVES to pour over them and contemplate our viewers from wide and far - if you are a viewer from wide and far and have not introduced yourself, go on... say hello!

aaaaanyway, i of course went right out and signed up the name of each of our blogs and just this weekend had the inclination to bring mine over. i think she will bring hers over soon. i am a geek this way, all she has to say is - hey, do you think we could make it do (blank) and i am off and running trying to find a way...

soooo, from here on out you can find me at http://wildride42gals.wordpress.com/

update your google reader and come up and see me sometime ;) i will be posting a new post there later tonight... i know, like you don't all have enough to do than to follow me all around blogland.

happenings around here...

1) they said YES to dakota's IVF!! woo hoo! we are gearing up...
ok, it won't look the way it was *supposed* to, dakota's eggs will be fertilized and then frozen instead of snuggled in me right away :(

*because they will not approve ivf for me at this juncture, we can not afford do the transfers to me right now


2) we are taking advantage of my being benched from ivf to medicate me for my infertility (wonky, headstrong, non-schedule following ovulation) and do an IUI this cycle... and i guess we will keep doing IUIs till i hit the 6 *failed* IUI mark [really hoping we don't hit that mark - if we do it will be 11 tries with no babies between us] and then once i am there, they should allow me IVF...

of course we hope to get a BFP doing one of these IUIs and then we hold dakota's embryos for baby #2. if we do NOT get a BFP, we pull embryos out of me to freeze and switch over to dakota's embryos [cause we can, and if we have not had a kid yet, we might as well go back to our original and preferred plan of her bio baby being first.]


3) so, it seems that i am hyper sensitive to every drug (and most plants, and dust, and perfume - well you get the picture) EXCEPT clo*mid. who knew?

NOTHIN' it did not raise my estrodil one drop, it did not make big honkin' follicles and most importantly it did not speed things along, putting me on a predictable ovulation launch pad... as a matter of fact, my follicles look as they always do (which luckily is not so bad i have one that is 11mm and some others on the other side that are smaller and i have a week, maybe more to go before i am close to ovulating. my body completely ignored the clo*mid. i had NO side effects from the clom*id - which again, shocked me immensely being a canary and all, so i am not surprised it didn't work.

i have to go back in to check the follicles on friday (they will NOT be ready, i know my body better than the docs) and then again on monday and possibly there will be an IUI on tues or wednesday (i suspect it will be later). i guess the IUI will look just like if i had done no drugs - fine with me, but a bit of a disappointment for our doc... she really wanted to see my ovaries doing the clo*mid dance. she is a sick woman ;) no, i do realize that one unmedicated average size juicy follicle is not as *good a bet* as several super juicy follicles hopped up on clom*id... this is where the vestiges of my being proud that my body marches to the beat of its own drum start to show... i know that is crazy given that i am paying our RE to make my body do something different namely to make me conceive against the ridiculous odds, and sooner rather than later given my age.

i ask you, do we have to choose between being proud of our bodies and the wonder that they are capable of and believing that our bodies are less than? not able to leap tall buildings, broken, failed, sick? and are waiting for a RE in shining armor to get our kitty out of the damn tree?


4) vacation... we are on vacation and it is the best thing ever!

we have work schedules that would be great for two people who DON'T like each other - think *co-existing* as opposed to *mad about you baby*! soooo, we are in paradise with a whole 8 days of each other's company right here in brooklyn... dakota rocks my world, did i mention that? we have had a couples massage, eaten out many times at great local places, slept in, gotten up early for no reason, had pedicures, discussed baby names, went to doctor's office and DIDN'T worry about how damn long it was taking, had several delicious sexy moments (so far) in bed and out ;) had a day where we went nowhere and did nothing, have had *mad at you* moments and the time to explore and resolve them all without three days of at-odds timing between things, meet the babypants gals - totally delightful in person as well as in blogland... and we have 3 days left, oh vacation!


5) our kitties, yes we still have them ;) are going in next wednesday to get spay/neutered (my dad says you shouldn't call it fixed - the cat is not broken and maybe he wanted to keep his balls ya know. it was hard on my dad in a house full of girls - me, my sister and my mom - when the only other male, the cat, got his balls *removed* poor dad!) that in and of itself would not be all that news worthy except that wednesday may well be the SAME day that i am having my IUI and the weird fertility karma of that is not lost on me ;)


6) maybe it is not asthma? the meds do not work for me - i have tried them all, in various configurations... what DID work was the massage... the woman who did it is very skilled and i talked with her a lot about the breathing problems i have been having and she did some REALLY painful work on my back, in the connective tissue between my ribs and various other places that have multiple muscles connecting and are places where adhesions were clearly formed and on that table, i could breathe fully for the first time in months! it was shocking! it lasted a couple days and is tightened back up at this point. i talked with my doc and we are going to explore the muscular/skeletal possibilities for a bit before we go deeper down the pulmonary diagnostic route... he says that there may be something to this given that the respiratory meds have been so unhelpful. strange! i will keep exploring it all... maybe it is a combination of things, who knows... i do know it is very uncomfortable and sometimes quite painful. i have another session with the massage gal on saturday. thanks to all of you who have given me support on the asthma front. it has helped me not to panic about what is going on and the keep trying to figure it out.

another plan bites the dust... but, wait there is a new one up our sleeves

hi all, it has been a long couple weeks. as dakota said in her last post we have been contemplating our next moves. i saw our RE on wednesday (wow, that was yesterday!) dakota and i talked all night last night about which way to go now.

i went in wednesday because i thought i would do my regular day2 bloods etc cause even though we had no fricken clue what to do next, but hell, doesn't EVERY protocol start with blood and u/s? ...while i was sitting waiting for the blood gal to take my blood i had such a sad gonna cry face on that she said, why don't we have you talk with dr X in case you don't need to be doing bloods (he is the one doc in our practice i don't know and that dakota hates) i said, more pathetically than intended, but i don't even KNOW him! she took another look at me and then asked me which one was my doc and hunted her down (even though she was not supposed to be on bloods and u/s that day) and got me in to see her. i love this blood lady!

my RE and i then got a chance to talk about my denied case and the fact that dakota's case has been in front of the insurance company now for a week+ and they have not said anything yet. the insurance company is waiting for her FSH for this month (even though they have a pile of her #s already). it is possible they will deny her case as well... our RE said she would not be surprised. aaarrrrgh! we have plans to fight that one tooth and nail.

when looking at my case, our RE was so pissed that they said i have *no documentation* of infertility since that was *her diagnosis* in november of 07, that and anovulation and that given my age, they should not be telling me i need to try and fail more times before they allow ivf, that said - they CAN say anything they want and every day the cases are harder and harder to win with the insurance. I enjoyed her rage on our behalf, and always appreciate her grasp of the realities. SO, she hunted down the insurance lady, chatted her up and then called me in to her office again and we looked at alternatives...

we decided that we will *treat* my ovulation problem - i started cl*omid on wednesday (i occasionally have cycles where i miss, and when i do ovulate, it is on no predictable schedule, which being a stubborn ornery gal i kind of took a crazy pride in and insisted on going au natural in my first IUI attempt). our RE thought that this plan would both help my future case (we are treating for infertility/anovulation) and if we shoot for doing an IUI this cycle while we are waiting for dakota's case decision, we might get lucky and get pregnant (which would be great to say the least), and at the very least we are getting me closer to meeting the ivf pre-requirements.

if we get pregnant, we would harvest and freeze dakota's embryos for baby #2 and if we don't get pregnant doing this cycle's IUI, we can re-asses and either do a frozen transfer of dakota's embryo (if she gets approved) or keep doing IUIs till we get me to an approved place.

this might seem like a no-brainer to some of you, but the order of our children (biologically) is something we have considered heavily. there are many reasons that we want dakota's bio-baby to come first *especially* if i am carrying it (largely related to marking our family as coming from both of us) and this shakes that all up. having our family is the most important thing, but it was important for us to talk through and take some time to have our responses to the change. there is so much to say on this i feel like it could be many posts in and of itself.

i worry still that there would be immense disappointment for dakota (i can't even imagine her having resentment), particularly since she started years before me and feels she has *not completed* her duty? task? quest? to produce a child. it pains me so... her pain i find so hard to bear. unlike mine, i can not refuse to feel it.

i mostly know that a new plan is good, it is forward movement...

more as it unfolds,

mulberry

ps - i am so sad in knowing that pufferfish is suffering with a likely ectopic pregnancy.

pufferfish is gonna be puffin' up

yes, pufferfish is pregnant, and now a *married lady*!

i just had to shout it from the hills because i am SO SO SO happy for them both and it gives me hope to keep keeping on...

we are still in the depths of insurance denial hell, full of how will we manage to *pay* for the transfers to me (i was informed yesterday that even the *less expensive* part of the whole shebang costs more than i had imagined) since they won't cover *anything* ivf related for ME. (all of this is, of course, assuming that we can get the evil insurance people to pay for the retrievals from dakota) is there any way to do this and not go into more debt than we already have accumulated in our lives. it almost manages to momentarily push aside the ever loooming, can we can get pregnant at all in the first damn place??

we took a walk to the park last night and sat and talked and cried and loved through our painful moments. the this morning we did it all again, wrapped in our delicious covers... i little less crying and more of the good loving parts ;) i love my sweet sweet dakota.

all this to say that one of our tribe has come out of the dark cave pregnant! yay pufferfish and we, well, we will follow you into the light.

denied... denied... denied... DENIED!!!

i don't know what else to say!

got a call from insurance company today in which they told me that my request for ivf is being denied. i asked *why* and they said that there was no documented case of infertility and there was no documented history of 6 (count them) 6 failed inseminations. mind you, we did not know we needed those things to be the case to get approved.

they said, talk to your doctor to determine plan of action. once we stop crying and fuming, we will do that.

this directly effects the harvesting of my eggs for freezing to use in the future. so at this point we don't know now if this will prove possible.

we are hoping that we will be able to build the kind of case that the insurance company wants when it comes to dakota. unfortunately, she has been through the ringer over the last several years and better meets their desired model of infertility - it breaks our hearts daily.

denied :(

gasping, waiting, oooh-ing

* thanks for the asthma advice and assurance that it will all be ok ;) i am still trying drugs and have not quite found the right combo... am still struggling... i feel a bit better when i lay very low - like i did over the weekend, doesn't work so much in real life. when i do any amount of walking, which i love to do, i get all aggravated again. by the time i got home last night, after a great visit in the park with pufferfish and then a good deal of walking around town, i was exhausted and not feeling quite right. i went to sleep very early and had bad dreams of not being able to breathe all night (i guess cause i was actually having a hard time breathing) they were weird dreams of of thick molasses-like goo-air filling up tubes and wondering if that is the way breathing was supposed to work... scary - i have called my doc this am and am waiting on call back about the next thing to try.


* [warning insurance complaint from person lucky enough to have ivf coverage through a secondary insurance - i feel almost guilty complaining!] we are halfway through the insurance approval/disapproval process... i have been ready to start my ivf cycle for 12 days (have taken 12 birth control pills to keep me in the limbo place before we can really get started). doctor's office has sent the pre-authorization in to my primary insurance and it took them 5 seconds to reject it - we knew they would, but it took several days for them to do it in writing and we had to wait for that to be able to send the request off to my secondary insurance... we finally sent that off on friday. i now wait with baited breath to see if they will approve as they are supposed to or if they find a way to reject it. gives a new meaning to the 2ww.


* dakota's cousin just returned from africa where she adopted (after a very long 2 year process) a beautiful little girl (who looks *amazingly* just like the cousin when she was her age - 18 months) it is soooo exciting and dakota is off work today and on her way over to meet the little one. i am so jealous. there was much oooh-ing and ah-ing over the photos and i want to go meet the little one in person too!

three things that are sucking right now...

1) seems i have asthma... about a month ago i started having this feeling in my chest that i had a lot when i was little... i called it being waterlogged back then. i used to have the feeling mostly when i swam too long in my grandmother's pool or in the ocean. i would also have it on smog alert days (we had a lot of those in the 70s and 80s in SoCal) and sometimes at other times i assumed must be bad smog days. it hurts :(

never thought of it as asthma... even with the cold burning feeling in my throat and chest when i would run as a kid... did i mention that i just decided NOT to run? really, i never run.

ANYWAY, the feeling came crushing in on me about a month ago and when i went to the doc about it, ASTHMA! bet you didn't know that you can have wheeze-free asthma. we are trying to find meds to get it under control, so far a week and a half of stuff that sucks. got some new stuff today to try. working to find solutions that will get me through the crisis and ready to get pregnant, and that will not negatively effect said pregnancy.

2) i am on birth control (to keep me in limbo) until my primary insurance officially rejects my ivf request in writing so that we can pass the request to our secondary insurance that should cover the costs... fingers crossed and crossed again. please please please don't screw us o insurance company! and don't delay tooooo long that we end up in a bad way for this cycle.

3) more about the birth control, the thing is that i am nauseous 24/7 from the pills and have had a migraine 3 or the last 4 days i have been on the pills. i woke with one the other day for the first time ever. i have them with my periods often, but never as bad as the one i had taking these damn pills. did i mention that i am a total canary in a coal mine? if the little pills are screwing with me this much, the shots are gonna kick my ass big time.

these things are sucking, and frightening me a bit too :( tell me i'm gonna be able to pull this getting pregnant thing off, will ya??

who knew they'd be passin' out awards?!

heidi at thinking miracles has awarded my blog with a brilliante award, who knew they'd be passin' out awards?! i am touched and inspired...



i honestly NEVER thought i would be a person who blogs. i could not understand what on earth would inspire people to blather on about the crazy things they think about and imagine anyone in their right mind would want to read it. i mean, i have *people* in my life, friends/family who i can tell the crazy stuff to and they listen and love me. i never thought i would want, need?, thrive on having a blog. ok, so i was wrong!! maybe i am a snob, maybe it is because i am not of the myspace generation, maybe it was because i did not know you were all out there waiting to play!

anyway, heidi was introduced to my blog because she is part of the stirrup queen's posse (if you don't know lollipop goldstein you've got to check her out) and she is one of many kind souls who watches over all those of us TTC who have joined lollipop's blogroll. heidi has been watching over our little blog and cheering us on - bringing us into the widely diverse community of people TTC. thank you heidi!

part of winning this award is that i get to choose 7 blogs i really like, to pass the award on to, so here goes...

at first i thought, how will i think of 7 - and then i started thinking of the blogs i enjoy and how different they all are and i thought, oh shit! how am i going to limit it to just 7? luckily for me, several i read and love have already won, and others i read and love will surely be chosen as recipients by those that got awarded when i did or by the 7 that i chose to win... all that said, here are my 8 awardees... (yes, i said 8, i am breaking the damn rules because i'm just that way!

babypants
i love the gals at babypants. i feel like i am with you on every step, every down and every up. thanks for being a blog i have turned to since i started writing in may. you are one of the first i found and i love being on this life changing ride with you both.

mrs. bluemont's house of things
thank you sarah (mrs bluemont) for taking us with you through your struggles TTC and, for now, stepping off that train to reclaim your life, your sweet love, and your sanity. i am eager to keep reading as you travel.

romancing the stork
i love being 'virtually' pregnant with k and m. no, i am not knocked up yet, but i love sharing in the being pregnant part of this trip with the gals at romancing the stork.

fumbling towards here
my sweet dakota decided that even though we are creating our motherhood together, that it was important for me (and her) to have our own voices out in blogland. i love reading her thoughts as we weave through this together (a big part of our courtship was through writing) i love love love to read her thoughts as they unfold onto her blog... it is so intimate even as it is billowing about in blogland.

half a dozen
a new blog from a canada dwelling, extraordinarily ordinary lezzie (as she says). if that doesn't make you curious to know more... know that she and her wife are trying for baby #2. i am so inspired by that, they stuggled to get #1 and now are entering the ring to go for #2. yay!

Anla knits. No, really she does!
butterflyanla found me through stirrup queen's blog. she writes kind things in her comments on my blog, she has a killer shoe collection, she has one of the largest hearts and i love that we are all together on this quest! straight and queer alike!

word to your mother(s)
i have newly found this blog and seeing as she and her gal are expatriates from the republic of brooklyn, i have a soft spot for them in my heart. dakota hails from the republic and i am a proud resident (by way of my birthplace in SoCal). i feel close to their journey and look forward to seeing it through.

vee and jay
because who doesn't love them? and because they are finally gloriously knocked up and because they make me laugh and because who better to break the rules with!


If you want to pass along the Brilliante Award to some of your favorite blogs, here are the rules that go along with this award:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Nominate at least seven other blogs. (yes, i know i broke the rule here!)
4. Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog

#3 rules the day

first off let me just say that reading the comments you gals left on my last post has been so helpful and calming...

well let me say it this way, thanks for helping me to see/embrace/admit that i am confused and overwhelmed because what we are trying to navigate is knots-in-your-stomach confusing and mind-numbingly overwhelming. not, for example, because i am not paying enough attention, or being indecisive, or i don't know... some other embarrassingly degraded reason i could come up with. so again, thank you, thank you, thank you, you lovely women you!

here is what the doctor said... she thinks that option #3 rules the day (with option #1 being second best and option #2 being a distant final option).

that means (brace your selves for the mind searing details ladies):

* i do the first round of stimulation (starting this week) so that we can harvest and freeze a round of my eggs/embryos (we have opted to not have dakota do a harvest in this round because fresh transfer is best and our insurance will cover three rounds of harvest - we are holding out for the ability to do three rounds of fresh transfer from her if we need to go three rounds. we will freeze anything that is good and does not get used in the fresh transfers)

* then during second cycle, dakota does stimulation and harvest (i do no more harvests, just gear up for receiving embryos - stay on meds to be sync'd and ready). we do fresh transfer from dakota to me during this second cycle. (we hope this part of the dance ends here in pregnancy, but we will rinse and repeat from this spot as needed).

* we keep my eggs/embryos frozen for future use even though the quality is not ideal with them frozen (we think that frozen, one year younger embryos will be better than one year older eggs for us at this stage)

dear dr... options, details, questions

hello blog compatriots -

for those of you who are into process, i thought i would show you the email/letter that came of the cuddling confab that dakota and i had on sunday night.

i sent this (very detailed) email to our doc this morning (she is best with email, so far it works ok.) we will let you know what she says.

i think we are leaning towards option 3 ourselves - though it would delay actual transfer of any embryos for *at least* another cycle, it covers more bases... JEEZE THIS IS HARD TO NAIL DOWN... and truly, i know we have talked about this 100 times before and yet, it seems impossible to get our heads around the details.

in it you will see all the optimism of two gals who hope to have not only one baby, but two (even though i am, count them, 41 years of age). we figure, why not shoot for what we really want while embracing the life that takes shape around us.

letter

dear dr -

hope you had a good july!

we have some logistic questions for you as we gear up for ivf - hoping to kick off this week...

where we are in our cycles now:
dakota is CD12 (expecting her period around end of month)
mulberry is CD34 (expecting her period on 8/7/08)

we are continuing to review the ways for us to approach ivf. these are the things we are considering in making our decision:

- for now, we have ruled out dakota carrying (we will see if we come back to that at a later date). we are going to focus only on mulberry carrying.
- we want to conceive our first baby with dakota's eggs, if at all possible
- while we want to use dakota's eggs first, we are concerned that if it takes a while to get pregnant with dakota's eggs and then all goes well and we carry to term, it will be another year or more of aging for mulberry's eggs by the time we get to trying for another baby using mulberry's eggs.
- mulberry is VERY sensitive to all medications (a real canary in the coal mine) and we would like to limit the meds mulberry is on when at all possible.
- while we want to look at preparation for possible future babies, we do *not* want that focus, in any way, to get in the way of doing what we need to do to get pregnant with a *first* baby.

can you tell us what the process would be to do each of the options below? and, importantly, your thoughts on what way gives us the *best* chances at this moment?


option #1) dakota goes through stimulation and harvest of eggs and mulberry does *not* do stimulation (so, no egg harvest for mulberry) but mulberry is on what ever drugs needed to sync up with dakota to allow for a fresh transfer on this first cycle.

what meds would be needed for each of us and what would the timeline be? this one obviously requires syncing our cycles. i know we have discussed this before briefly, but we are less than clear on the actual logistics. what is the blow by blow process on how we would do that, given *where we are in our cycles at the moment*?


option #2) dakota goes through stimulation and harvest of eggs and mulberry also does stimulation (so both can freeze eggs) no transfer on this cycle. we would then do a frozen transfer the following cycle when mulberry has *not* just gone through stimulation.

what meds would be needed for each of us and what would the timeline be?


option #3) mulberry does the first round of stimulation so she can harvest and freeze a round of eggs and then during second cycle, dakota does stimulation and harvest. we do fresh transfer during this second cycle to mulberry who would need to be sync'd up to receive the transfer.

what meds would be needed for each of us and what would the timeline be?


do you see another option that would be better for us to consider?? we are hoping to kick things off with mulberry's period that is due this week, thursday.

we look forward to your thoughts via email. let us know if you feel we should plan a time to meet with you in person as well to discuss.

thank you so much!

-- mulberry and dakota

squint and trouble... and how to sublet my womb

the kitties are still here... (i know, none of you are surprised)

my gal is sneezing and begging to keep them. i placed a call to the landlord today to see if we can add pets to our lease. we will see what he says! there is the slight possibility that he will disallow it even though 80% of the tenants have pets.

we are calling them squint and trouble. (those are their gang names, their real names are still under construction)

dakota and i are about to crawl into bed (our favorite place for intimate and hard/charged conversations) and talk through our possible paths to getting a baby in my belly... i will post our list and thoughts soon. we have found that the closer we are physically - touching, near naked, etc. - when we have intense conversations, the better. it helps us have more fully that we are 1000% *with* each other and it helps us go farther, share more and laugh at the hard stuff. awesome, i love it!

more to come on our plans of embryo harvests and freezers and meds and all that...

still...

still looking for home for the kitties...
still waiting for september to come to start ivf (come ALREADY!)...
still eating WAY too much chocolate...
still eating way too much crap of all kinds...
still eating way too much...
still love my girlfriend more than can be imagined...
still avoiding exercising (i think i really need an exercise buddy)...
still (and continuously) impressed and moved by fellow IVPers stepping up over and over again...
still getting over jetlag...
still crazy after all these years...
can't seem to sit
still...

while we are on the kitty theme

we need your help...

two little kitties were abandoned near us and our roommate shenendoah found them and brought them home till we can find a place for them... we wish we could keep them, but dakota is allergic - and though she says she will take allergy shots so we can get a kitty someday, she can't do it now while we are gearing up for ivf meds and all...

they already seem to know how to use the litter box quite accurately :) and they are very very friendly and comfortable with people, the little grey and white one is on my lap as i type this...

if you live in NYC and can take these absolutely adorable little siblings - please please please email me as soon as possible, so we can arrange for you to come get them. we need to place them tomorrow, monday.

email me at mulberrymail@gmail.com

no kitties...

turns out that my folks were not quite ready to get kitties... we went to two pounds and at one there were not very many cats and the second there were SO many my mom was overwhelmed with all the little faces she couldn't imagine taking one home. and they really miss their kitty who just died... they were just not ready :(

[so, sorry, no pictures of new kitties for travelher and pufferfish but here is one of their little kitty at 17 years old, about a year ago. she still looked like a kitten]



the second pound was one i used to volunteer at when i was about 14 years old... it sounded and smelled just the same! was a wild gig helping people pick pets to take home, washing the really grungy ones so someone would want to take them home... i do love critters :) we don't have any because dakota is allergic, the poor thing!

yay vacation days!

i am feeling much less stressed, thanks for the comments online and off...

work events are over, they went well... and i have been officially *on vacation* for 2 days! the weather is beautiful and i have been visting with family and a couple friends and relaxing. i am going with my parents this afternoon to help them to pick out a kitty (or maybe 2) at the pound. their kitty died a month or so ago and they really miss having a furry companion. i don't think they have been without one since, wow... i can't think of when that would be... there has been overlap with every pet back to since i was born! no wonder my mom is so out of sorts... well in any case, it should be a good day :)

ovulated today - nice to see that my body is getting back in the swing after last month's 60 day cycle :) dakota is going to accupuncture while i am away and getting her eggs in tip top shape and the train moves slowly on.

so excited to see all the pink lines and digital exclamations out there is babymakingblogland. you all are an inspiration!

perhaps i will have a chance to write more later... off to go shopping!

anxious, unsettled, impatient - or - how to spend two weeks in sunny california

i am finding it really hard to be in CA this week. our events are going well, though i am distracted. did i mention that i am *responsible* for producing our events?? turns out it is much harder to do while distracted.

in my last post i talked about the shift i have been making in my community organizing and the ways that i am finding it unsettling, even as i know it is what i want to do... a big part of my distraction this week and one source of the unsettled feelings is because i made a significant shift right before i took off for CA and resigned from major duties. once you do that kind of thing, word moves fast and i have been trying to reach by phone several people i am close to, to let them know ''in person'' before they hear the news some other way. (hard, but so far very lovely conversations.) i am anxious now in my down time - instead of relaxing - and am having a dog of a time negotiating the 3 hour time difference and the long hours of events. i keep missing people.

on top of all of that:
- i REALLY miss dakota (it was only two weeks between my two CA trips and she had to work late most of the days i was home) and i miss my roommate shenandoah too!
- i am feeling impatient, we thought we were going to do our first ivf cycle in august, but now it looks like it might be more like september cause our accupuncturist wants more time to create good egg health (we just started accupuncture)
- my last cycle was *60 days* and they think i ovulated somewhere in there, but my monitor lost track of it along the way (a first) so i thought i hadn't ovulated, but the blood tests said otherwise

am hoping that writing this all down will help easy the anxiety... but, even if it doesn't. now you all are with me in it ;)

the joys of tracking two cycles :) and exploring new terrain

two little clearblue montitors sit on our dresser, side by side... mine has a small sticker on it that translates the time to pacific time, for my trip to CA - i am leaving in 3 days. i am excited that we are about to start down the trail to harvesting dakota's eggs. don't quite get yet how we are supposed to get me in sync with her, but one thing at a time i guess. the day after i get back from CA should be day2 of dakota's period and time to start shots and other meds. good news is that i will be home to cheer her on while she gives herself the evil shots and to enjoy the mood swings that will likely follow ;)

while i am in CA (after i finish my work events) i will visit with my parents for a week. i am looking forward to spending some time with them. they are very excited that they may be grandparents in the next year (hope, hope). they had given up on that possibility years ago. my younger sister is also queer and she and her long time partner (my sister-out-law) are not interested in having kids, though they are keen on having nieces and/or nephews. as for me, i never gave up on the desire to have kids, but i did spend the last 15 years, or so, focusing my energies on community organizing. it did not seem like there was room for a family, so i didn't think about it. over the last 6 years i have been shifting things around to make room for this piece of my life i had put on hold. i am excited to be in the thick of pursuing making a family (the most important part being that dakota and i found each other - yay!), and at the same time, as i make even more shifts, it is kind of hard and unsettling to be in such a new place in regards to what was so central to my life before. it is good i think, just such a different terrain.

some gems we have found along the way, yes i mean you!

what an interesting time this has been... i am preparing to travel to produce a meeting for work and realized that last year when i went on this same trip, i packed my clearblue ovulation monitor for the first time. it has been a year now (12 months!) that i have been POAS almost daily, more for dakota. we started the spermification process in earnest january '08, so we are now 7 months in (a mere drop in the bucket, i know). mostly we have been focusing on getting dakota pregnant, and she has gotten pregnant twice and lost them both early on, and it is the second round, as she also tried a few years back - before we met - and had 2 other pregnancies heartbreakingly lost, though she says it must have been because *our* children were waiting for her to find me... is there anyone better than her??

we both have really been loving reading everyone's stories in blog land. it's so nice to meet you!

in our endless googling and digging about on the web, we came across some interesting items i wanted to share with y'all... even though you all are the biggest gems! [and frankly, you have probably seen all of this before]

i came across these images of what ovulation actually looks like - you can see the difference between the follicle and the egg - something i was never quite able to grasp.
pictures of ovulation occuring

and a video description of what happens in an ivf harvest and transfer... strangely more instructive than our own RE was in the first 3 conversations about ivf.
video description of ivf

stirrup queens blog - if you've been there, you know what i mean! if not, well check it out...
amazing blog with more ttc info than i have ever seen in one place

and for the lingo, mrs. bluemonts house of things - no better list of ttc lingo out there :)
ttc lingo

thanks for welcoming us to the neighborhood.
xo mulberry

slowing down, deep breaths...

well, i feel like this last week has been a good lesson in clarity... the wish for it, and lack of it, and that it is possible to slow down, take a deep breath and live through mud...

over the last weeks we all watched the soon to be 6 mommies at veeandjay, romancingthestork and joulybeansbabyblog... flap around in the muddy waters and happily come out of the chaos pregnant!

as for our current unclarity, we talked to our regular RE and she did not completely agree with the dr we saw the other day. she did not think we absolutely should not do the simultaneous stimulation, but she did think that we might be a little better off with a more simple protocol. she also did not feel strongly about us needing to do the blanket genetic screening at this juncture which is good, cause we were not comfortable with that.

we have much more talking to do with each other (dakota and i). to start with, we have decided to do nothing at all for july, as i am traveling for two weeks at the end of the month. we will regroup in august. we are going for ivf for sure, but still trying to get clear on if we should find a way to collect some of my eggs before we try to do implant one of dakota's embryos in my uterus so that my eggs don't age another year before we try to use them. we are of course hoping that i will get pregnant with her embryo so that would mean about a year before i would be trying for baby #2. i am 41 now, so that is all a bit daunting...

we did get some good advice (on-line and off) not to second guess ourselves and to trust that we can do this. so we will be keeping on :) with deep breaths...

we will keep updating as we go...

(confession, i have such a hard time with the waiting... i am really trying to do what i am writing - deep breaths!!)

overwhelmed... would love your thoughts

our regular repro endrocrinologist is out on mondays so when i went in this monday to see why no period for 56 days, i saw another doc that works with her in the practice.

seems somewhere along the way i did ovulate and period should follow at some point soon so they will not be putting me on progesterone to '' bring down'' my period. we will just wait for it to arrive.

here is the thing... we had been planning to pursue the plan i outlined in last post... we each stimulate, each do egg retrieval and then put her embryo in me...

turns out this other doctor i saw monday thinks that is a terrible idea. he says that i am much more likely to get pregnant carrying her embryo if i do *not* also go through the stimulation before the implant. that was surprising to me... our doc never mentioned that and i never would have imagined it true. most ivf happens just that way - first you stim, then do retrieval and then grow the embryos and then put back in the gal who just stimed. he said that in europe, sometimes women get a discount on ivf if they will agree to donate some of the embryos, but the fact that - % wise - the woman who gets the donation is more likely to get pregnant than the woman who's embryos they are, creates an ethical dilemma... and that is why they do not do that in the states. again, never heard any of this before...

the other thing he felt strongly about was that he thought we needed to do the three rounds of ivf egg harvesting from dakota that our insurance will pay for, and then when we have the three batches in dish, that we do genetic testing and determine that way which ones are good to go. this because of maternal age and the fact that the fact that she has had four miscarriages. at first this seemed sound... then i saw a couple articles that seemed to be saying that there has been no shown correlation between screening and higher birth rates in older moms (link to one below)... and it will cost $3-5K that our insurance will *not* pay.

http://www.ivf.net/ivf/bfs_issues_new_guidelines_recommending_limited_use_of_pgs-o3469-en.html

arrrgh... what to do? maybe we do not stim me, we collect her eggs, do not screen and just try ivf on me with her ''donated'' embryo. or do we collect her eggs, fertilize and save them for later and try IUI on me so we have higher chance [maybe] of us having two kids over time - one related biologically to each of us? have any of you out there dealt with any or all of these issues?

our regular doc was supposed to call us yesterday to talk about all this and she didn't...

sorry for the rambly post, we could really use some input and words of experience :)

and now, for our next trick - IVF

june is almost over (thank you 'egg drop post' for your recent comment on my may post, it helped me write again) i have been traveling for my job, it has been 54 days since my last period... and, it seems, no ovulation this cycle at all - weird!

my sweetie and are shifting from IUI, with her trying to carry - to IVF, with me trying to carry her embryo. we have experienced several losses with her carrying. she seems to be extraordinarily able to conceive, but heartbreakingly thwarted when it comes to carrying a pregnancy.

it all feels kind of surreal - i would love to hear from anyone who has been through IVF, with or without ''donor eggs'' carrying their sweet one's embryo.

since my period seems to be in hiding, our doctor says when i am back from my travels, we will put me on a few days of progesterone to bring on my period so we can start to sync up our cycles and move on down the path to get my oven ready for my gals bun, as it were...

am wondering what the next month will be like for our poor roommate as my gal and i are both going to be on all kinds of hormones and stuff to bring our cycles in sync - we will each do a harvest of follicles and see if between the two of us, there are any good ones for us to transfer to my waiting uterus :) we hope there will good strong embryos of hers, and as a back-up we will have mine to consider as well. (we'd like to have one of each someday - the lesbian equivalent - one related to me, one to her) we want to start with hers... best case scenario, we use hers fresh and freeze some good ones of mine for future use... it is our first time, so we are still shopping for best case scenarios :) though we do know they are often elusive...

i feel so grateful to have found an incredible woman to enjoy this ride with... and i am so pleased to have also found so many incredible women out there writing about this experience from their own drivers seat...

why blog?

hello out there...

over the last several months (as long as we have been trying to conceive with the help of a medical army, tubes and vials and speculums, and a couple anonymous donors) i have been reading blogs written by other queer gals on the winding road to motherhood. I have found comfort and inspiration... and hearts aching with pain, bursting with joy...

during sleepy conversations with my gal (she works nights, i work days) i shared some of the stories that i encountered on my internet travels... it was nice to know there were so many other travelers out there... we have decided to add our voices to the mix and sing along with you all.

thanks for the inspiration :)