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!