Rainbows for Kate

...for more info.




Post stolen from Bea. (I hope you don't mind.)

Unauthorized post

Someone's in active labor :-)

Great news!

Well, there are some people who are hiding great news, but I just read this.

(Actually, Tertia updated the post and now it does reveal the news. Perhaps this is the same news as Karen's, I'm not sure...)

Congratulations!

Mother's Day

I think Erin said it perfectly...

I won't be celebrating for two reasons - one is that in Israel they both celebrate sometime in February (I never remember when) and they've switched it to "family day" and the second is that even if there were a Mother's Day in Israel, my kids would definitely forget. They sort-of-remembered-after-being-reminded that my birthday was yesterday... (and even that just means that they said the words "happy birthday").

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In blogosphere news, my mom sent me over to plan-b. For those of you who haven't followed their story (I did, but at some point I stopped reading), they had a really unique surrogacy experience, with a known surrogate who co-blogged with the intended parents. Go check it out :-)

I haven't had a chance to mention Doc Grumbles - she was at the top of my mental list of "most likely to succeed soon" infertility bloggers and is newly pregnant :-)

My oven's an imposter

My oven's temperature gauge is designed like a speedometer. You know how the speedometer goes up to say... 140mph and your car, even with the perfect tires, road & weather conditions could maybe get to 110? My oven claims to go up to 250 (celsius) but if you actually put it on that setting, it heats to a certain point and then blows a fuse (or whatever it is). Fortunately, it revives itself after a while. Anyway, this year I was clever enough not to repeat the mistake of previous years and the oven is behaving nicely. (I just hope it reads my blog and appreciates the fact that I'm writing about it.)

This Passover stuff is just way too stressful. I mean, when else would you bite off someone's head for putting something down on the table? (Maybe when you just ate sandwiches on the table and the 'thing' that someone was holding was a box of matza...) Fortunately, it's almost over. Unfortunately, being a vegetarian makes it a challenge for Ohad. In addition to not eating anything with flour but matza, we also don't eat anything with corn, beans, rice, green beans, peas, lentils, peanuts, etc... so it kind of limits his diet. Even worse is the fact that some people do consider these kosher for Passover, so they're sprinkled in everything. It makes shopping, even in Israel, in a kosher supermarket, a really annoying experience.

For a break (from the cleaning) I got up-to-date with as many blogs as I could... and I stole this from Rachel:


85 words

Speed test

My dad encouraged me to learn touch-typing during the summer between 9th and 10th grade. He was doing a post-doctoral program at Harvard (in ethics) and needed someone to type his papers. He not only paid for the course, he later paid me to type his papers... it was a good deal :-) I think his feeling was that no matter what I did in the future, knowing how to type would always give me something to fall back on. I enjoyed the course so much the first year that I went back and took another course the following summer.

Congrats to Ahuva Batya who just got a piece of GREAT news :-)

And happy Passover to all those who are celebrating!

Infertility at a time like this?

"Barren Karen" posted an interesting question that I've thought about myself numerous times. Although she didn't put it this way, this is what I see as the main issue: At what point do you stop being a member of the club, if ever?

Is it at all legitimate for a woman who's currently overdue with her 6th child to hang around infertility blogs as if she has something to contribute?

I spent years trying to get pregnant with Hadas. 8 months into my first marriage, 2 months before I turned 21, I went off the pill and hoped to become pregnant. My period was irregular, so the two-week-wait was often a 4-week-wait, ending always in the same disappointment. I was so convinced that everything was OK that it was only 14 months later that I made my first appointment. And then the tests began. And treatments. There was no internet, no support groups, and no one who really had any idea what I was going through. I went for IUI after IUI and then for IVF. And another IVF. On the 2nd IVF I got lucky. My beta was 2500 at 19dpt (that was the earliest they tested back then, because they gave hCG shots as late as day 8). One (much older) friend had told me that bleeding is common in IVF pregnancies. It didn't really help me not to freak out when I started gushing blood right around 6 weeks... but she was right, everything was OK & I carried Hadas to 42 weeks, when finally I was induced.

I was 24-1/2 when Hadas was born & my chances of getting pregnant hadn't changed. I didn't want her to be an only child and went through 2 more fresh & 1 frozen cycle (which took nearly 18 months) before I became pregnant again. Matan (b) and Lilach (g) were born just after my 27th birthday.

So, I was young and I had 2 healthy pregnancies and 3 healthy kids. How could infertility still possibly affect me?

Well, even with 3 kids in the house & even though their care fell almost entirely on me, from the time M&L were about 6 months old, I felt someone was still missing. The feeling was so strong that no matter what I did, I couldn't shake it. Some months I would fantasize that a miracle happened and that I'd be pregnant. I would try to calculate the odds again and again, but more than 60 cycles later, it still hadn't happened.

I did go back for another IVF cycle. I conceived on the first try, but had a really bad pregnancy that ended around 13 weeks. From the time I started TTC until that miscarriage, 12 years had passed. Twelve years of looking at other people and trying to convince myself that pregnancy-by-sex was not just a myth... years of knowing how fortunate I was to have had successes, but still feeling sad at the loss of a dream. At my inability to determine if/when I would have a child (or another child).

Does what happened after that erase the past? In some ways, it does. I look at pregnant women with a big smile on my face. Seeing mommies with little kids is the most natural thing in the world for me. Any jealousy that I had or difficulty going to birth parties (we don't have baby showers in Israel) is completely gone. I can even honestly say that after, with G-d's help, our baby is born healthy, my family will be complete, that I've 'done the pregnancy thing' and 'the breastfeeding thing' and the 'being a mommy to a baby' thing. I look at my kids and think how lucky they are to have each other and each one is an incredible blessing...

What will stay with me forever is the understanding of what it is like to go through infertility. The uncertainty, the fear of never succeeding, the frustration, the anger, the jealousy... I've also gained experience and knowledge during these years, so although my family may be almost* complete, I hope that I will be able to provide support and information for others who are still at the beginning, with the hopes that they will be writing a similar post someday. And, because I am free of any of the negative emotions that infertility carries with it, I have the luxury of always being purely happy to read other people's good news.

So, in answer to the question... you stay part of the club as long as you have something to contribute to the infertile community. I believe I still do.

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*BTW "any day now" is getting kind of old, since people have been telling me that since late January... Note that I'm actually getting FARTHER from my due date every day.

So she didn't wait for me...

Though she never said she would.

A huge congratulations!!! What an achievement!

Random things

1. I want to thank Serenity for appreciating my thoughts.

2. The Braxton-Hicks are becoming much stronger and much more frequent. In my case, it really doesn't mean anything, but it's very noticeable.

3. Baby is definitely head down. When my sister asked me last week (before the ultrasound) I told her I wasn't sure & she said that a c-section isn't the end of the world anyway. True, I said, but it's not part of my plan. It might wreck some of my favorite stretch marks.

4. I am less panicked about a name. Not because we have any, but simply because I realize that since there aren't any left, it's not going to help... (This is what happens when you have a big family - from my side alone I have 19 neices and nephews, in addition to 11 cousins that my older kids have from their father's side - and, of course, you don't want to re-use names...)

5. I am going back and forth about feeling stupid to pack a bag so early (next week, which will be week 37) and feeling like I might regret not doing it, just in case this baby decides to surprise us. Maybe I'll compromise by waiting another week?

6. I am currently fabulously, fantastically lucky because the only discomfort I have is minor muscular pains here and there. I was able to give Abigail & Nomi a shower tonight on my own without any trouble... I'm also sleeping fairly well (I noticed in the past that my 9th month tends to be much easier than the 7th & 8th. Of course I'm only starting the 9th month tomorrow, so basically I'm saying that I expect things to get better & not worse.)

7. My parents are still in Vietnam, heading to Cambodia pretty soon. They've been sending SMS's almost every day. It's incredible how different it is when you hear from someone on a daily basis. I even gave my mom (who reads at least as many blogs as I do, and probably many more) some updates...

8. Ohad and I are planning a pre-birth getaway, well... as getaway as you can get when you take an almost-3 and an almost-2-year-old along. Maybe the Dead Sea?

I forgot to work on my seminar paper today :-(

What I have to show for 2 years

This post has to be really quick because I have tons of work to do...

Two days ago was my 2-year-blogoversary. I actually started this blog because I thought it would work as a good content management system for all the questions I was getting & that it would save me having to answer the same questions over and over. I found that Blogger doesn't do it for me as a CMS and that Yedda has made my life easier (if you get a lot of questions on a certain topic, definitely try it out!)

Two years ago I was pregnant with Nomi. By now, she's talking in complete sentences, "I want to climb down alone, Mommy." (out of her carseat) and we've come to accept her allergies (milk, eggs, sesame seeds, nuts, bananas, kiwi) as part of our life. I've learned that 2 babies who are a year apart is actually much easier than twins and we have the almost-daily pleasure of seeing our two little girls interact with each other with love and kindness, usually including infectious laughter... We've also watched Abigail transform from a baby to a little, independent girl who always tucks her socks into her shoes when she takes them off & who knows that when the big kids are away for the weekend that they've gone to visit their dad... and she misses them.

In the blogosphere, I met a lot of terrific, hilarious people, gotten to read about plenty of women who became mommies (way too many to link to) and even got a new little sister (even my mom agrees)... Now, how common is that?

And just one last thing... yesterday, Ohad finally bought a car, meaning I get ours :-) That will be nice, after 2-1/2 carless years.

OK, back to work.

'Tis the Season

But I can't figure out for what - whether it's a good time to blog, since so few people are that it makes my newly-updated blog more appealing or to take a blogging-vacation (since hardly anyone's around to read blogs, as is clearly obvious from the relative lack of comments about the results of Kirby's cancelled IUI... well, that and my stats, which are basically in the toilet.)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I spent last month reading journal articles about eSET - elective Single Embryo Transfer - when couples have more than one good embryo available, but choose to transfer only one. It's fairly obvious that this is the trend of the future, since pregnancies with multiples are far riskier than singleton pregnancies. It also isn't surprising that deciding on eSET is really hard*, especially for women. Not only is there a sense that the pregnancy rate is lower (per cycle, it is, but if you transfer one embryo one cycle and then thaw and transfer another the following cycle, the pregnancy rates are similar- at least according to one team of researchers**) but it pretty much eliminates the chance of having twins. A survey done among IVF mothers who had already conceived found that mothers with twins perferred twins, but also that 62% of mothers with singletons would have preferred to have twins.***

I'm sure I've said this before, but even after knowing all the risks (which I didn't when I chose to transfer 4 embryos) I still think I would have found myself in the group that was unable to make the decision to transfer a single embryo - if you're going to finally achieve pregnancy, a pregnancy that might be your only one, it almost makes sense to 'try for' twins...

Funding is a partial solution - couples who know they'll be able to have treatment toward an additional pregnancy are more likely to agree to transfer a single embryo. This, apparently, is a good economic choice, since pregnancy with multiples and then multiples are prone to increased health risks, which are a burden to the health system - meaning that long-term it will be cheaper to finance additional IVF cycles than let the current twin rate of 20-25% continue. I believe Finland is one of the first countries to make this decision, but other countries have begun or are at least talking about it. In Finland, the multiple pregnancy rates dropped from 25% to 7.5% between 1997 and 2001 (when eSET increased from about 11 to 56%)**** The overall pregnancy rate per oocyte retrieval was almost unchanged.

One last (and totally subjective) thing I'll mention is that from reading many infertility blogs, it seems that the successful freeze-thaw rate in the US is terrible. It appears that relatively few embryos are frozen and that not enough survive the thaw. Having had lousy embryos frozen and thawed in 1995, when there were only 4 excess embryos, all were frozen and all survived the thaw, I wonder if improving the methods used in the US (or perhaps just being less strict about what embryos clinics freeze) might result in higher FET pregnancy rates. (My FET resulted in my 11-1/2 year old twins.)

*Blennborn et al. (2005)
**Thurin et al. (2004)
*** Pinborg et al. (2003)
****Tiitinen et al (2003)

Ah, and to all those celebrating, Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year :-)
Need some tips on surviving the holidays? (Not an ad, just an article I posted in the past.)

Cancelled Cycles

I have to say that I was really disappointed for Kirby (& hubby too) that their last IUI was cancelled. I mean, haven't they been through enough - so far every cycle has been cancelled... Now it seems that G-d indeed works in mysterious ways...

I truly hope and believe that this is the beginning of something wonderful.

Good luck tomorrow (just for a start)!!!

Happenings...

I read a few interesting articles lately:

Fertility experts will meet in Arusha, Tanzania, this weekend under the auspices of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology to discuss the challenges of infertility in Africa at the first conference on infertility in developing countries. Their goal is to develop a low-cost version of IVF, making in vitro fertilization available to couples worldwide - including those in developing countries, where infertility is often so strong a stigma that it often results in social isolation & sometimes even in suicide. Perhaps this research will help make IVF more affordable and safer everywhere.

A 48-year-old Minnesota woman is pregnant after using an egg that was frozen, thawed and fertilized before being transferred to her uterus. Dr. Jacques Stassart of Reproductive Medicine and Infertility Associates in Woodbury, Minnesota said that the technique is still experimental but that his clinic will offer it on a case-to-case basis. There have been other cases like this, but not too many. I think egg freezing is an amazing option, but that care needs to be used in choosing the women to be treated. Someone needs to be looking out for the future children as well - those who may be born to women at practically any age.

A change in Victorian law will now allow access to IVF treatment for single moms and lesbian couples. It seems to make more sense to allow them access to insemination - why go straight to IVF if there are no fertility issues?

And last, but definitely not least, I really enjoyed Bea's posts about the value we place on being parents (she actually asked how many years of our lives we would be willing to give up to successfully become parents). I chose the odd-woman-out answer (as I often do) but I really enjoyed reading all of the other answers as well. In many ways, this reminds me of how frustrated I felt reading Stumbling on Happiness (by Daniel Gilbert) in which he presents research showing that we're actually less happy once we have children, but doesn't compare it to the alternative of not being able to have children.


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P.S. Tomorrow's our growth scan. This will be the first in over 10 weeks(!) I 'get' to do it a week early because despite having done two 100-gram-GTT's this pregnancy, I am still at risk for gestational diabetes.

Blogosphere Quickie

First, a cute article about IF bloggers.

And I also wanted to wish good, great, amazing, fantastic luck to:

• Kirby - starting what will hopefully be her first REAL cycle tomorrow!!!
• Watson - tomorrow's the c-section. She made it past 38 weeks with twins :-)
• Julie - whose HPTs are showing two lines!
• NakedOvary - there are no words... :-) (Thanks, mom, for pointing this out!)

I love happy news...

Up (in the night) dates

My yeast infection (if that's really what it was) seems to be long gone (yay!) I must really have caught it early because I didn't have any of the typical symptoms and it was gone after about a day (don't worry, I'm continuing the full course of treatment because I really don't want it to come back).

I wake up about 3 times during an average night. Either I'm connected to an IV without knowing about it or I drink much more than I think I do... I could say it has to do with pressure on the bladder or something, but the truth is that this has been happening to me ever since I moved out of the dorms (about 20 years ago), when I probably should have gotten up in the middle of the night, but was too lazy to.

One thing I'm thankful for is that in my pregnancies with both Abigail & Nomi, I was wearing a very sexy pregnancy belt by this point (no, that is NOT me in the picture though it is about the size of my belly). Fortunately, this time, I'm not suffering (so far) from symphysis pubis pain (I had it on the debilitating side & the belt really did make it possible for me to do things like walk.) What you can't see in the picture is that it has these two huge velcro straps that you have to undo anytime you need to use the ladies' room. I am enjoying every day that I don't need it...

On another note, I read Bea's cross-fertilization post (great, as all her posts are), which spoke about the idea of just letting her belly tell all and it reminded me of two things that happened to me last week - first, when I went to pick up the prescription, the pharmacist told me not to used the medicine during my period. I nearly cracked up in her face, but decided not to embarrass her, so I just smiled. Second, my neighbor (who I see almost every day) stopped by and suddenly, mid-sentence her jaw fell when she noticed...

In other news, I'm currently in the early stages of writing a seminar paper that has to do with IVF - the specifics aren't closed yet, but it has made me wonder about women's desire for twins...

21 Week Scan

Today was our 21-week ultrasound (meaning we're currently in week 22). Normally, they kind of zip through it, saying, "this is the heart, here are the chambers, everything's normal..." but we got special treatment today - this was the first time the doctor did this particular scan for my insurance company (each company has different requirements for the scan - he wasn't sure of all the details). First, he went over everything twice, then he was busy showing the ultrasound technician and the secretary (who typed the data in during the scan) everything else that he knew how to do with the machinery (take a 3D pic of the face, measure the cerebellum, etc.) It was very amusing. The only thing we didn't get to do was count the toes, because of their position. I can't believe how much it already looks like a baby :-)

The doctor claimed that if anything were wrong with our amnio we would have been called within 2 weeks. I finally got through to the clinic today and it seemed as if the nurse had the results in front of her but wasn't yet allowed to tell me (she said something like, "I should be getting them any minute," which sounded strange). She said that we'd have the answer by Wednesday.

Since the last time I was weighed, just a few weeks ago, I gained 5 pounds(!). I don't even have much of an appetite (unlike Bea).

Congratulations to Karen on being able to bring her babies home!!! And thank you to Suz for sharing her terrible scare with Savannah. I hope everyone will take her advice and go for an infant CPR class. I did & I hope I never have to use what I learned...

And the winners are...

The top 5 ordered items were:

Helping the Stork: The Choices and Challenges of Donor Insemination

The Couple's Guide to In Vitro Fertilization: Everything You Need to Know to Maximize Your Chances of Success

FertilMARQ: A Male Fertility Sperm Test

Single Mothers by Choice

Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates: Answering Tough Questions and Building Strong Families

The only DVD ordered more than once was:

The Time Machine

Anything else you'd like to know?
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And of course, no IF blog would be complete without wishing Thalia a huge congratulations on the arrival of Pob!

Lastly, for all of those observing Yom Kippur, have an easy fast and a Gmar Chatima Tova!

I shoulda said thank you...

First of all, a major Mazal Tov to Karen on the birth of her triplets today!

In some pages on FertilityStories I have links to Amazon, as a not-so-successful effort to try to, as they say, 'monetize the site'. However, once in a blue moon, people actually do click through and buy things (that I'm hoping/guessing they would have bought anyway). A few months ago, someone bought a TV/DVD combo. So I wanted to say thank you to anyone who has bought through the site (especially y'all with the TV/DVD, I hope you're enjoying it :-))

And now for the question... Keep in mind that the ONLY information I get about a purchase is the approximate date, what it was and how much the person paid. So here's the question:



I'll give it a few days & see what you think...

Calming down?

Thank you all so much for your comments on my last few posts!!!

Things seem to be calming down around here. I hope. I got a good report from the social worker who was shocked to see real-live happy kids instead of Oliver Twist... She said that at most she would recommend greater flexibility with the visitation. I told her that I don't really mind, but that she should remember that he doesn't take advantage of the time he does have for visitation, so that giving him more seems a bit useless... At least this means there isn't going to be any sort of custody battle. I hope once we're able to tell the kids this whole thing is over (we will wait until after the judge's decision, hopefully next Monday) that they will feel much better.

Yesterday, when I was looking for good things to think about, I looked at my site stats and saw that in the past month FertilityStories.com has had over 21,500 unique visitors. Last year, in the same time period, there were 9300. Is there a doubling-time calculator for that ;-)?

I posted a message about the glucose challenge on a medical forum & the doctor there said he recommended repeating it at 28 weeks. I can live with that, although I admit that those last few sips really did make me want to vomit. I was lucky enough not to, because my guess is I would have had to start over. Mega-yuck!

We're still debating the amnio issue. My choice would probably be to skip it based on the three tests we did do - the NT which gave 1:975, the 16-week-scan that was normal, and the AFP which gave 1:1140. On the other hand, if it turns out that something is wrong, we have other children we need to care for. Basically, it seems that the risk of not doing the amnio is very small, but if we don't do amnio and there does turn out to be a very serious problem, it will have a significant impact on our entire family. It's confusing and it's time for us to make a decision. Our appointment is next Tuesday (the day after we go to court). I guess we can cancel it any time until Monday or so... Thoughts?

Oh and last, but probably most importantly GOOD LUCK to Karen whose c-section is scheduled for today!!!

Edit: I just wanted to mention that we did go for amnio with the last pregnancy (due to bad AFP results) and I documented the time in what I called my amnio blog - before I had a 'real' blog.

Gestational diabetes update

I got the results late last night. No diabetes! All of my values were well within normal range :-)

I'm only in week 18 now, so I am wondering whether I'll have to repeat the test, but for now that's good news - it means that I don't need to worry that too much sugar is getting to UI (short for Ubar Inbar - ubar in Hebrew means fetus). UI, by the way is what our (Ohad & my) field is often referred to - user interface...

The kids met with the social worker last night, but since they were at their dad's house both before & after (and while they're there, even when he's not home, their ability to talk on the phone intelligibly is severely limited) I don't know much about what went on there. (But I do know that I used 3 homonyms in the same sentence... Fortunately, I was always a good speller.)

I now understand that the social worker has serious problems expressing herself. What she meant to begin with was not that the children are neglected, but rather that we had neglected to seek professional help for them. It is hard to screw up this message in English, but even harder in Hebrew. I think she needs to see someone about this problem, especially if she's writing things for the court. If not, she's neglected. Ooops. I mean then she's neglected to get help for the problem she has. If I had been able to understand this last week, I would not have been nearly as stressed, especially considering the fact that even recently we took one of the kids to a professional (and told the social worker about it... I wonder if we should add amnesia to her list of problems).

BTW, I really did, as I told the social worker, lose 4 pounds over the long weekend that included 6 holiday meals. I started this pregnancy at 127. I now weigh 130 (I am, however, only 5'4").

In blogosphere news, I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed for Bea (AKA POF), who's having a less-than-optimal early pregnancy experience. I hope, pray and believe the next scan will bring a huge sigh of relief. Thalia is scheduled for a c-section on September 20th. I can't believe how excited I am for her! Karen (another woman with an unbelievably fabulous attitude) has made it to 32 weeks. She's in the hospital now, but everything's looking good. Even triplets has got to be easier than these past few months have been for her. Suz & Joe have now taken 3 of their quads home. Wow. And of course, good luck to Kirby who's having (what I consider to be) her first real appointment with an RE this week.

Now I really do feel better :-)

Rijeka, Croatia here we come...

I've been catching up on the blogosphere and it seems lots of people have gotten good news. In fact, as I was clearing out my blogroll, I realized that many of the blogs have become pregnancy and even mommy blogs.

Now that my jetlag is almost over and I finished folding the laundry and washing the floor, I'm planning to wake up at 3:30 a.m. and head off with Lilach (one of my IVF-FET twins) to the airport, where we're taking a mommy-daughter trip to Croatia for a week. We plan to be in the Istrian peninsula, probably drive to Trieste (Italy), and then to Ljubljana (Slovenia) and to Bled (Slovenia). I also found out that you can take a day trip to Venice and, having never been there, it sounds really tempting. It's not even ridiculously expensive - for the two of us, it would be about 100 Euros. On another note - for some reason, I feel like camping. We're not taking any camping equipment with us or anything, but there are campgrounds where you can rent everything. I've never been one to enjoy camping, so I have no idea why I've suddenly got the camping bug. I hope we'll get a chance to camp at least one day... We didn't make any hotel reservations, so at worst, we'll sleep in the car (only kidding).

Anyway, before I go, I just wanted to wish Bea, my hero, a successful cycle with a fabulous beta. Bea - you've got the best attitude and you definitely deserve this!

Doing the jetlag thing

It's 5:37 in the morning and I wouldn't be up (probably) if it were not for the jetlag and for some weird nightmare a certain person I was sleeping next to had...

Yesterday I woke up bright and early and drove to the airport with my parents.

(boring flight story ahead)
I was lucky to have gotten back to Israel in time - all the flights out of Chicago Sunday night were delayed and the friendly people at the Delta check-in informed me that there was no way they could get me to Atlanta in time for my connection. At the last minute, I was able to switch flights to another flight that was running too late for me to get my connection... The stewardess actually asked all of the other passengers to remain seated so that the two other guys and I could zip off the plane as fast as possible. We RAN across the terminal, onto the train, off the train, down the halls & finally, really out of breath, reached the gate, where they greeted me with my name. I was literally in tears getting on the plane - knowing that if I missed this flight, it was a full 24 hours before I could get on the next one. It took me about half an hour to catch my breath, but I have never been happier to be on a plane before in my life (I have no fear of flying, I just hate it). Anyway, aside from the fact that there were a whole bunch of people waiting for me here, I knew that missing the flight would also mean missing the opportunity to greet Kirby & her husband.

Kirby's actually the first person I've met in person after reading her blog. I'm really looking forward to getting to know her.

I keep thinking about Thalia's comment about the BlogHer conference being all about "getting the brand out there" and it is so far from the reason that I or most other people were there. Some of the issues were technical (Did you know that you could use different rss feeds for different tags, for example? I didn't. Have you ever wondered how you could completely change the template without wrecking old posts or export your Blogger blog to WordPress?) Some had to do with handling comments (Do you delete negative comments? Do you turn off comments altogether?) Some had to do with handling multiple blogs on multiple topics (Do you have both a marketing blog and an infertility blog & how do you keep them separate and find time to update both? When is a blog considered dead & should you leave it up anyway?) And then there were others about monetizing your blog (How does it change what you write? Should you allow it to change what you write? In what ways are you obligated to your readers if you do product reviews?) and sessions about "From blog to book" - for women who want to get published - how to do it, what sells, etc. I went there to get ideas and hopefully, once the jetlag starts to wear off, I'll actually figure out if I did and what they are... In any case, I felt there was a lot to learn.
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Oh, weird. I just turned around and it's light out. And here I was thinking it was still night. I'd better go back and try to get some sleep. Today is going to be a long day...

Introducing me in 10 seconds...

The current task is to try to introduce myself in ten seconds or less... Here's my attempt:


I'm 38, married & a work-at-home mom. I've lived in Israel since I turned 16. I have more ideas than time & lots of dreams for the future.

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I started this blog as a platform to answer questions, discuss various infertility topics and present news and research. Sometimes (especially recently) I talk about my life. It's kind of tricky, because I write about infertility (of which I am a survivor) but I actually have a house full of kids (5, 3 conceived with the help of IVF).

I have really enjoyed becoming a part of the infertility blogosphere and as time goes by, more and more of the blogs I read have become mommy-blogs. I get teary-eyed just thinking about it.

Better late than never?

OK, so this was the week of the virtual world tour and it took me too long to get the pictures and then to transfer them to my computer. Here they are anyway...

On Tuesday, I drove to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. This is where I had my first successful IVF.


We drove via Mevasseret, kind of the 'back roads' - closer & less traffic.

Here's Hadassah Ein Kerem (not to be confused with the other Hadassah hospital at Mount Scopus) up on the hill.

Getting closer...

The new Mother and Child Center. It's actually not that new anymore, but it wasn't around when I was doing IVF there.

The famous Chagall Synagogue (hiding behind the bus stop). We were kind of in a rush...

This is Hadas, my IVF baby that was 'made' and born at Hadassah Ein Kerem. (The similarity between her name & the name of the hospital is coincidental.)

Special thanks to Hadas who took all the pictures, except this last one :-)

Updates...

First of all, I promised more information - I'm going to be at BlogHer 2007 in Chicago next week. I'm hoping to start a discussion on the use of widgets to encourage reader participation in blogs, with the most successful of these that I've employed so far being the Yedda widget (you can see it on the right sidebar below). I haven't been in the US since April 1994, so it's been a while.

In order to be able to go, I needed to finalize Nomi's weaning. Nomi, as you may or may not remember, is almost 16-months-old and is allergic to just about everything (milk, eggs, sesame seeds, tree nuts, peanuts, and bananas), so nursing her was a safe solution. Except that some things really pass through the milk. For a few months I was completely off these things (great for weight loss), but as time went by, I ended up staying off eggs, nuts and peanuts and sesame seeds (which seem to give her the worst reaction). So since October, I've avoided them almost completely. Now that Nomi hasn't nursed for almost 4 days & there's no chance I'll put her back on, I can finally eat these again - so here's my question:



Back to infertility issues. I read all of Peggy Orenstein's article in Sunday's New York Times. I liked the article and thought it was written well. I recommend it to anyone who's considering using either sperm or egg donation.

Karen is now on bedrest after her cervix seems to have shortened. I hope her doctor will soon go back to talking about the planned c-section at 34 weeks.

Watson had a scare this week. Having been through the same (without the PGD), it makes me annoyed at the medical staff who passes on partial information without thinking of the implications. Fortunately, the doctor who did my scan gave me a lot more information before I went home.

Faith is also going through a scare. Weren't things easier before there were so many scans?

Sorry for only mentioning a few... I am just so swamped with work that needs to be done before the conference.

Haiku Meme

Kirby tagged me - here's the deal. You write a haiku to describe your IF/latest cycle/you name it. It can be deep and emotional, or snarky and bitchy, or just downright funny.

A haiku is a 17 syllable poem in three lines: the first and third lines have five syllables each, the second line has seven.

I chose to do my history...

Getting pregnant should
be easy at just 20
unless you're married

A year and longer
Counting down, late periods
Still no positive

I hate IUI
Catheter shoved deep inside
All my cycles failed

Gave up IUI
IVF sounds promising
Let's give it a go!

Cycle one torture
idiots sent for beta
a false positive

Cycle two one of
four embryos stuck around
now cute teenager

Cycles three and four
No plus beta for either
But some frosties left

Cycle five with four
frozen embryo transfer
I'm a mom of twins

Cycle six beta
29 is not so good
Blame hematoma

Not chemical but
13 long weeks 'til the end
Blame hematoma

---

Kirby's are (mostly) hilarious, check them out!

Please leave a comment and consider yourself tagged :-)

I've been tagged!

Thank you to Projgen for tagging me...

Here are 8 arbitrary things about me:

1. I hate going to the hairdresser. I consider it to be about the same, torture-wise, as going to the dentist. It usually takes me a few years to recover after having my hair cut, which is why it is usually pretty long.

2. I went to 12 different schools in just 11 years because my father was in the US Army. The longest I spent at any school was 2 years (1st & 2nd grade and 8th & 9th grade). In 6th grade I went to 2 different schools, each for just half a school year.

3. I graduated from high school shortly after my 16th birthday, moved to Israel on my own and studied nursing at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2 years into the degree, I dropped out because I realized that with the kind of nurse I wanted to be, it would be difficult to have a family. After that, I went to study graphic design and printing, which was much more fun).

4. I was frequently accused of being anorexic when I was a teenager. I was also told I looked like Brooke Shields many, many times. No one would say either of these things about me now (and no, I was never close to being anorexic and the feature I have in common with Brooke Shields is most likely my eyebrows...).

5. My childhood best friend got addicted to drugs, sat in jail and was unable to raise her son (he must be in his late teens by now). I still feel a loss at having lost her friendship and I always wonder if there is something that I could have done differently that would have prevented it from happening.

6. I have incredibly amazing stretch marks on my stomach. Most doctors gasp when they see them. It looks like my stomach was hit by a really violent earthquake. I am not sure any amount of airbrushing could fix it so that I could pose for Playboy…

7. I love logic problems and could spend hours doing them if I had the time. I also love organizing things, especially if I can find a place for everything. In theory, my house would be disgustingly neat. In practice, it isn't…

8. My husband and I worked in the same office for 4 years and did several projects together. We still consult with each other about almost every project either of us works on.

I tag:
Karen (who couldn't possibly have anything better to do with her time...)
Kirby
and anyone who's currently waiting for a test result of any kind.

Shacking up & other news

I told my sister that I moved in with Ohad. She corrected me and said I'd 'shacked up' with him... She has the advantage of having lived in an English-speaking environment for far longer than I did. I, unfortunately, am stuck with the English of someone who left the US at 16 and decided to immerse herself in the new culture... language included. Anyway, back to the point... I finally decided that in order to get work done I needed to hire someone to care for Nomi some of the time. The allergist said it's too risky for her to be with other kids (she's allergic to milk, eggs, sesame seeds and almonds... so far), so it meant someone at home. My office, until yesterday, had been in the middle of the house - literally, a desk in between the kitchen and living room, with a view of most of the first floor of the house. Perfect for watching her crawl around while I check my spam email. I took over a corner of Ohad's (already scrunchy) office & now I can hide out here during those few hours a week when a babysitter comes to watch Nomi. Ohad and I have worked in the same office before & I'm actually finding it very nice. I would post a picture, but I don't think anyone would believe that my desk is the neat one (it is).

In other news, Mia sent in an update about her twins (born at 24 weeks) that will be posted later today (it's mostly good news, as she put it).

A good friend of mine who was misdiagnosed with PCOS and called me up one day to ask what a beta of 38 means (to which I answered - COME OVER & proceeded to give her peestick that showed a faint pink line) just started her 3rd trimester. In honor of that, I made her this shirt:

I'm going to have a designer draw a better version and put in on a t-shirt that people can buy (maybe at cafepress, if their site revives itself).

Congratulations to Adrienne Domasin, who is the first woman in the United States to have a baby born from IVF using both frozen egg and frozen sperm.

Last, but certainly not least, Bea has posted information about the next IIFF - International Infertility Film Festival.

Barren Bitches Book Tour #3 - The Time Traveler's Wife

This is the first time I've joined the Barren Bitches Book Tour and to be honest, aside from reading Blink, The Time Traveler's Wife is the first book I've read in quite a while (actually, I didn't manage to finish the book in time, but I'm definitely hooked).

A few days ago, each participant received a list of questions - one question from each member of another group - and we were asked to choose & answer three questions. Here goes :-)

If you were able to communicate with a past or future version of yourself, how much would you tell them? How much would you want to know? Discuss how well you think Clare and Henry struck this balance, giving examples of points and ways in which they conveyed or withheld information.

I like the Henry and Clare's balance - with Henry keeping most things about Clare's future from her. Telling her that her mother dies from ovarian cancer, for example, seemed to alleviate her fears that something else might happen to her mother. Telling Henry, when he bounced back to the present while at mass, that everything was going to be OK and that no one would notice, also seemed like a stress reducer - without changing anything else. Knowing that she was going to marry Henry in the future, however, is something Clare probably would have been better off not knowing - she lost some of the mystery and excitement...

I think I wouldn't tell myself much, in my visits from the future, but my facial expressions would give it all away :-) Being an optimist, I always hoped that I would have a happy marriage (I had many miserable years in my first marriage) and I am glad that I didn't know how the change would come about. I don't mean that I was unhappy as a person, but I just got sick thinking I might end up growing old with the person I was married to... I only would have wanted to know about my first marriage if there had been something that I could have done to prevent it. Otherwise, knowing what it was like in advance would have made my future seem unbearable.

I learned both through infertility and life in general, that we can take a lot more than we think we can.

This is not exactly part of the question, but in many cases, when I read other people's blogs, I feel like a time traveler, as if I know the future. A part of me wants to say to women going through their first steps with infertility that it's all just part of the path they have to go through before they become moms... That they have to make it through this time and that there's a baby (or two, or more) waiting for them at the end.


In the "TTW" the main character can at times, know what happens in the future, even though he can't change it. In terms of infertility, I often wonder if I had been able to know what the end result of all this would be if I could be at peace with it, even if I couldn't change it. How do you feel about that? If you could know what was going to happen sometime in the future in regards to your IF would you choose to know and not be able to change it, or continue the way you are and get to that place unaware of the final destination?

If I had known that I would someday be a mom, I would definitely have been at peace with everything that came between that time and the time that I did... Despite the fact that it took 3 years of trying, testing and failing, I was very lucky and got pregnant with my 2nd IVF. I had an uneventful pregnancy my daughter was born when I was 24 (married 4-1/2 years) I would have liked a message from the future that someday I would have a child or children - not how or how many, but that someday I would hold a baby of my own. It would have taken away that horrible feeling that here I was, in my early 20's and I might never have a child. It might also have helped let me let go enough of my own feelings to be truly happy for my friends who had babies while I was struggling with the knowledge that it might never happen for me. (My doctors were very pessimistic.)

If you were to travel to emotionally important events and even play different roles in these events, such as Henry did throughout the book, which event(s) would you revisit? These events could be ones you'd want to revisit, or not.

My father had a sister who died of hepatitis, when she was 16 (my middle name, Sara, is after her). As soon as I understood this, I felt like I desperately wanted to be able to meet her. My father, who was 13 when she died, had a lot of trouble talking about her and I'm not sure I ever even saw a picture of her before I was 11. I remember looking through a notebook of hers from school (by then, my father had kept it for over 25 years) and wondering if she was like me, looking at her doodles on the sides of her notes and inspecting her handwriting, even more than the words she had written. It would be incredible to be able to meet her at that age - I've always felt that I lost something by not having met her... The only other part of the past I would be interested in visiting is Ohad (my husband) as a child. I can picture so well what he must have been like. I believe that, like Henry fell in love with Clare, I would fall in love with the small child too. It would be amazing to be able to tell our daughters what their dad was like as a kid.

---
Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein.

Also feel free to visit FertilityStories - the web's largest collection of real infertility experiences.

Insane Cleaning Tip

OK, so I'm deep into this Passover cleaning thing. The weird thing is that I don't even hate it that much. It could be because the last two years were more intense (Abigail was born about 6 weeks before Passover, Nomi was born less than 3 weeks before) or just that I got things under better control this year (or maybe I just think that now because I'm forgetting bunches of things that still need to be done).

Anyway... as I cleaned my oven this morning, I discovered that a carrot peeler (carrot scraper?) is a great way to get the guck off of the oven racks. It was almost fun... (Or is that the caustic soda going to my brain?)

I'll be back with another posting about it later, but check out the IIFF International Infertility Film Festival - it's a must.

Normal must be overrated...

These are the results of my 'normal' test:

You Are 50% Normal

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

I didn't notice anything strange, but then I guess that just proves how accurate this test is, right? Um. OK, maybe not.

There are still several free OPKs available. I'm also doing a trial sale on eBAY.

Here's a link to a new blog I've started reading: My Perky Ovaries. Karen's currently pregnant with triplets & has a lot on her mind. I'm sure she'll appreciate the support.

Watson posted 3 clips on how to prepare injections for IVF. She and her husband are great! Go take a look!

Multiple Births & Surprise Babies

My mom sent me this article by Susanne Sanchez who tells her story, from the discovery of triplets, through the impossible decision as to whether to reduce from triplets and the results of her decision. I think she has presented the dilemma well.

I couldn't miss this story about April Barnum of Orange, California who went into the hospital with stomach pains (not knowing she was pregnant) and ended up with a healthy 7lb 7oz baby. It seems that in the past she and her partner had wanted to have a child and had given up on the dream because they'd been unsuccessful. With April being as overweight as she is (420 lbs) it's easy to understand how doctors might not have been very optimistic about her chances.

Lastly, a small request: Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for Bea, now in the rotten two week wait.

Some really good news

Beth, after the most horrible pregnancy ever, welcomed her daughter on Thursday! Congratulations!!!

Amillia Taylor an IVF baby born at just 21 weeks and 6 days, was released from the hospital and her prognosis is good!

Faith's second beta looks good - this is her first IVF/ICSI cycle.

Other's I've missed?

A special congrats

To ElectricLady, who hung in there during many long months of bedrest and finally gave birth to her little Bat Girl!

Congrats!

Double congratulations to Robbie who gave birth to twins this week! I have a special place in my heart for twins, especially boy/girl twins... People tend to think twins run in our family, since I have boy/girl twins & my younger brother has 2 sets of boy/girl twins (2-1/2 years apart, no less). Two of my mothers' cousins also have twins, but one of them is adopted and the other is a step-cousin... No matter which way you look at it, it's a coincidence, but a nice one :-)

Anyway, I just wanted to send a big Mazal Tov to Robbie & Ezra (their blog names) and to wish them a lot of happy times with their new babies!

Expecting soon in the blogosphere are Beth, suffering a horrible pregnancy with HG (she explains it well on her blog) and ElectricLady, with a unicornate uterus. Know any other IF bloggers who are expecting soon? Happy news makes my day :-)

I'll need a double room

Womb, actually, that is... A woman with a double womb gave birth to triplets - a pair of identical twins in one womb and another baby in the other. Hannah Kersey, who's just 23 is now a mom to 3 girls born in September, 7 weeks early by c-section. This is the first reported case of triplets born from two uteruses in the same woman. Apparently, separate or partially joined wombs are more common than I thought - about 1/1000. As for City Girl, (with a unicornate uterus) she and Bat Girl are hanging in there, nearing 35 weeks now :-)

I've written about uterine transplant before and I find the continued research very interesting. They write that "The researchers point out that the transplant of organs that are not needed to preserve life raises ethical issues." I'm guessing that they are referring to the danger of major surgery and of rejection by the recipient, because there are organs that are donated to improve the quality of life (e.g., cornea transplants).

This article, last week about the first baby born after the Katrina embryo rescue brought tears to my eyes. I can only imagine what the couples with frozen embryos were going through - not only were their houses and their city being destroyed, but possibly their future children too. Some stories do have happy endings :-) Thank you, Eema, for sending me the link!

There was an interesting article recently about infertility in Orthodox Jews (from the Jewish Press). I may have heard it before, but still found it surprising that IUI is sometimes permitted even at times when the couple is not allowed to be intimate. Considering the large number of phone calls I've had from short-cycled women who are having trouble trying to conceive (let me know if you'd like an explanation as to why), this may not be a fun solution, but it at least is another option to taking drugs to postpone ovulation.

If you're interested in what's happening in the infertility field and would either like to post a guest post or join this blog, feel free to write me.

Quilt Raffle

Just a quick post to let you know that Julie's raffling off one of her amazing quilts for a family who is about to adopt. You can read the story - it's a great opportunity to help a family make their dream come true.

A Roundup

First, a bit of support for "one of us"... Dr. Lillian Schapiro published her first novel, Tick Tock (the link takes you to an eBook version of the novel) . Lillian had a septate uterus (a layer of tissue going through the uterus) and endometriosis. She discovered she was infertile while working as an obstetrician and treating other women with similar problems. I have not yet had the opportunity to read her book, but it would be interesting to hear the story from the perspective of a woman who understands exactly what's going on from the very beginning (we all, pretty much, become experts as time goes by). Here's a link to the book on Amazon.

On Sunday, I read an interesting article in the New York Times about couples with a history of cancer that is known to be of genetic origin in their families, and their use of PGD - preimplantation genetic diagnosis - to avoid having babies who are carrying these genes. I found the article to be well-balanced - while stating the obvious advantage of knowing your child will not develop a specific type of cancer, it also discussed ethical issues, such as "playing God" and the fact that PGD is only available to people who can finance it.

Connections between drugs and infertility are a frequent question that I find in my inbox. This article discusses marijuana use by women (OK, female mice) and the findings that it can cause early pregnancy failure. Another thing to definitely stay away from.

I'm currently working my way through an article on IMSI - intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection - published in Fertility Weekly. The method uses sperm that are selected in real time and dramatically improves the take-home baby rate. I hope to have a review of the article up in the next few days... stay tuned.

This post brought to you by:

(Fertility Stories does not get commissions from purchases at eBookMall & was not asked to review or present this or any other book.)

DI Dads speak up

Eric Schwartzman who runs a Yahoo group called DI Dads dropped me a line a while back to let me know about an article in USA Today about dads to kids born by donor insemination who are speaking up. It's about dads (and families) who've chosen to tell their children about the way in which they were conceived. Eric himself was interviewed for the article.

I found it interesting that Eric says that the term 'father' is used for the donor and dad for the social parent (the male parent raising the child). I like the separation between formal and functional... I really understand why it's important for these dads to speak up - they're making it legitimate to have children with the help of a donor. This will make it easier for future couples contemplating using a sperm donor and will make it easier for children who were conceived in this way.

When I was a kid, most adopted children didn't know they were adopted. Today, I think it's rare for a child not to know. I doubt that this change will happen as quickly with children born using donor insemination, but the work Eric and others like him are doing seems like a step in the right direction.

A Few Donated Dollars

Believe me, my PayPal balance was nothing to write home about. I make a few bucks here and there by selling fertility tests on my Israeli (Hebrew) site (www.poriut.com). I go through a complicated monthly process of changing the money into Shekels so that I can report it to my business and pay taxes... I always transfer an even amount, so that I sometimes end up with a few leftover bucks in the account.

While reading an infertility blog, I came across a site with a donation link that I found irresistible, so I clicked the button and set my PayPal account back to an even zero.

It would be great if there were funding for everyone who needs fertility treatments, but since there isn't, I hope I that those who can help will. I hope I find more opportunities like this in the future and that sometime I'll be able to make a donation that will actually make a difference. Until then, this felt good :-)

If you can, try it!

Infertility Bloggers - Persephone Did It!

Wow! Persephone's long-awaited babies (nicknamed Aleph & Bet) have arrived:-)

It's amazing how happy you can be for someone you don't even know...

Here are a few other blogs I've come across. I'm putting up a list of soon - if you've got one, send it to me or add it in your comment.

A Little Pregnant
Project Genesis
In A Holding Pattern

Wishing Persephone & Lance a big Mazal Tov & hoping for a lot of happy stories :-)