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...