49 posts tagged “babies”

Oh come on already!  I've put another Facebooker on 'hide' because she's announced her pregnancy with a big happy sonogram as her profile photo.  This week's tally for hitting the 'hide' button due to baby blabber?  Five.

This latest one pisses me off a bit more than the others because she's so young and flaky.  She's actually a friend of some friends and I met her for the first time when she came to our house for the orphan's New Year's Eve party (orphans being expats with nowhere else to go).  She smoked up before she arrived - I thought she was just unfriendly.  Turns out she's a quiet stoner.  (Why would you smoke up before showing up at a stranger's house?  Odd and rather anti-social is what I'm saying...)

Another young 'un is also in the throes of morning sickness - 22, married to a guy nearly two decades older who she met while playing video games online.  They courted through the game before she came over to schnitzel-land to meet him in person.  It's kind of a sweet story if you can ignore the creepy things he's said to her.  (She's also in one of my expat groups.)

#3 was nearly devastated that it took them 6 whole months to conceive.  Of course, she hadn't charted or done anything like that, so I think 6 months is rather reasonable.  She doesn't want to hear that though, so I won't say it.  She will be hearing the smack of my head against a very immobile wall if she doesn't cut out the whining about it... you're pregnant and so obviously not infertile, so SHUT THE F UP ABOUT ALMOST BEING INFERTILE BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT.  Whew.

#4 has kids that are nearly out of the house.  "Whoops" doesn't even start to cover it.  She's happy and sad all at the same time.  I can completely understand why she feels the way she does, but I'm also not in a position to hear from someone who isn't overjoyed to be pregnant.

#5 is someone I know only online and who has gone through more than double the number of miscarriages I have.  I am so happy for her, I really am, but I can't read literally 20 updates a day from her on the subject.  Oooh - you hiccuped again?!  Can that be a sign that your baby is a boy?  Three farts in two hours?  That means twins, right?  Eight weeks along and she bought a stroller, then posted photos of the stroller, then her buyers remorse for not getting it in blue instead of brown... at 8 weeks!  After 7 miscarriages!

Wow, am I bitter today.  And awfully judgy.  I shall wear a long black robe and carry a gavel this evening (or my bathrobe and a wooden spoon as I have neither a black robe nor a gavel). 

CD 3:

Is this our last round?  Not sure yet.  Some adoption agencies in the US have recently stopped taking overseas US citizens as clients, I guess we'll probably go for another round.

Let me again take this opportunity to rant about folks who ask, "Why don't you just adopt?"

1. I'm afraid to take on a special-needs child with my family so far away and my support network here consisting mainly of transient expats.  Many countries do not allow 'healthy' children to be adopted outside of their home country, even if it means those children languish in orphanages.
2. I'll be turned down by many agencies in my own country because I live overseas.  It's not illegal, but it is difficult and many agencies don't want to deal with it anymore.
3. There are few German babies to be adopted.  We're looking at a 4 year wait here, by which time we'll probably be deemed too old.
4. Will you lend me €20,000 euros for a non-German adoption?  Didn't think so.

Hi all.  Yet another friend has given birth - Lucia Elissa was born early yesterday morning.  That makes 4(!) this month, and another friend just went to his very first Lamaze class with his wife.  Add my 2 colleagues who are due in August and September, and that's a crapload of babies.

We're going to start what will most likely be our last round of IVF soon, and I'm trying to be positive.  A couple of friends have suggested that I read The Secret, but I can't bring myself to visualize myself pregnant every day because I can only think of how crushing it will be when it all ends badly.

Sorry for the bummer post - I had to get that out.  Thanks.  And thanks so much for all of your comments - it's so nice to know I'm not alone here.  :)

Today is my due date from the second miscarriage.  I also got my period this morning from the failed IVF.  Holy crap, the cramps are bad.  And it's Monday.  I'm trying to lose the weight I gained through this whole journey, so I can't console myself with chocolate, either.

I bought a giant, complicated knitting machine yesterday.  It has more accessories and moving parts than my old Vespa.  I'm going to focus on learning to use it tonight, I think (Mr. Twinge has to work late, as usual.)

And maybe crack open some of the Swiss chocolate we brought back from Zürich last weekend.

The tears don't come at appropriate times: hanging laundry in what should be the nursery, seeing the neighbors' newborn, calling my cat 'my little boy', soaping my flat(ish) stomach in the shower.  Instead, I have to stop my face from contorting into the 'ugly cry' while on the bus or sitting at my desk at work.

Looks like #4 was a bust - I took an HPT this morning and it was negative.  On to round #5.

Beta on Thursday.

Of 11 eggs we ended up with one single viable embryo, which of course stuck to the catheter during transfer and required a second attempt.

This whole cycle has been rather craptacular.  We got 11 eggs, all of which were ripe.  Of those, only 4 fertilized and only 1 of the 4 passed genetic testing (polar body testing of the egg only - PGD is illegal in Germany). 

To compare, last time we had 9 eggs, 7 were ripe, 7 fertilized, 2 were transferred and 3 were frozen.  (No genetic testing was done).

I'm going to get back in touch with that adoption counselor.

I'm a former Catholic.  There are many, many reasons why.

Here's a big one:
http://www.catholic.org/prwire/headline.php?ID=6395

What may be surprising to the millions of women who cannot conceive and bring a child to term is that NaProTechnology, taught by Dr. Hilgers, is nearly three times more successful than IVF for assisting infertile couples, according to the Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction, a group founded by Dr. Hilgers at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha.

Infertility at the institute is treated by determining the fertile time of a woman’s cycle, as well as by using surgical techniques such as laser treatment and ovarian wedge resections.

Infertility treatment usually begins with discovering a woman’s fertile time. This can be done with the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning.

Believe what you want about faith, but don't flat out lie about science.  Who honestly believes that people turn to IVF because they don't know when their fertile times are?

GAAH.  And pass that bacon.

It was a boy, and it was trisomy 16, the most common form of genetic defect.  I was ready to say that I have a hostile womb and just can't carry a baby.  Still can't rule that out, but at least that wasn't the cause this time.

Three doctors at two practices believe this is just incredibly crappy luck.  If there is a different cause each time, it's easier to believe it.

Thank you so much for your kind words.

As I thought, this third miscarriage has hit me harder than I thought.  But we're looking forward to our next shot at IVF, probably in 4-5 weeks.  It sounds like an eternity from now...