Our Surprise Adoption

We have a new baby boy. He's a cute one, very small...only three and a half pounds. He has big brown eyes, just the most adorable thing you've ever seen. Ah, I get ahead of myself...let me go back a few days.

My love and I were enjoying the benefits of a loosely planned staycation. We both needed a little va-cay, but with all of the fertility stuff, we decided that instead of missing a cycle or spending money, we would just take some time off of work and do stuff around town. Said staycation was affectionately dubbed "Lawannapalooza" since I like to think of my birthday not just as a day, but a weeklong event. Lawannapalooza did, indeed, include a hang gliding adventure and a trip to visit the fertility statues at Ripleys. We figured we were closer to Heaven than normal so we could throw a few prayers to the wind while hang gliding and if that didn't work, we'd rely on some tribal mumbo-jumbo to knock us up.

For the record, I did not touch the statues. Whilst most of my baby making parts are mostly dysfunctional, I wasn't willing to take any chances. I'm pretty sure that despite the fact that it would be the truth, I would never be able to convince Heidi that I had been chosen as the vessel for the second coming. So, I avoided the statues. Heidi, however, touched and kissed both of them. This is huge, the kissing part, because if you know Heidi, you know she's a huge germophobe. For her to place those precious little lips on statues that had likely been touched by a significant number of hands, lips or God forbid, other weird body parts. But there she was...kissing the statue. That is called commitment, people!

We also had the distinct pleasure of having two doctor appointments this week. The first one was the mock transfer, said details covered in the most recent blog. The second one was the dilation of Heidi's cervix to help minimize any obstruction during the actual transfer. It was, for me, uneventful. For Heidi, the one whose vagina, cervix, and uterus are always at the forefront of attention, it was a different story. I will say this, and I'm sure she'll agree, it sounds a little worse than it was. Not that prefacing it with that statement made it enjoyable. Oh no, my friends, it was not fun, just manageable. Since most of our friends following this journey are of the female persuasion, after reading this, you may all bend slightly at the waist and do an ever so slightly audible groan.

The visit started with having a pain block put on her cervix. This involved four shots, straight up the hoo-ha. Of course, the visual effect was considerably worse than the actual shot. Remember anatomy here...how long does the needle need to be to make its way up the va-jay-jay until it hits the cervix? Exactly...mental image complete. It wasn't all needle, mostly just an extender, but for crying out loud people, it was metal with a needle on the end. Even my private parts cringed. So, after the speculum was in place (all my lady friends, imagine that fabulously cold and metal instrument of discomfort), the block was given. Four shots. Into a very vascular area. That meant blood. Not "girl" blood, but blood. I, the observer of said procedure, was not expecting the vascular result of the shots and did a visible "yit-yit" at the giant Q-tip used to swab up the end result of the shot. Yeee---uck. (Shivers) After that, a magic stick was used, containing some magic chemical, to stop the bleeding. This left a gray residue on her cervix. Dr. Welden advised that there would be an "ashy" discharge to follow. Again, I will reiterate...yit-yit. Now, it took about five minutes for the block to kick in, during which the doctor and nurse left the room. So, I did what any self-respecting lesbian wife would do when her wife is spread-eagle on a gynecological table...I headed down south to take a little peeksy. Oh dear God. Someone could have left a warning label on her knee that said "Danger...there is a speculum and a pair of scissors hanging out of this vagina". I was not expecting that. I was so amazed by the sight that I wanted to share this moment with my wife (I know she was experiencing it, but it was the visual effect I wanted to share). So, I did what any selfless, considerate, giving wife would do. I took a picture on her phone and showed it to her. Not something you see every day. She gazed upon said travesty betwixt her legs, to which she replied, "I did a good job shaving." That, my friends, is why my wife is a frigging superwoman. Does she freak out at the sight of scissors dangling from her most personal spot? No. Did she yell at me for taking a picture of a speculum in her woman-parts? No, you mere mortal, wimpy women. She gave herself GD props for a great shave job. I love my wife. Reason #684.

After the picture was successfully deleted and the block kicked in, Dr. Welden began the process of inserting increasingly larger metal thingamajiggies into her cervix to slowly dilate her. This took about an hour. No big deal, you say? Reealllyyy...well, if you don't think it's a big deal, why don't you just do a pop-in at casa Voci and I will be happy to see if you can take a full fifteen minutes of the speculum, scissors, dilating torture materials, ashy vagina maker, etc. I dare you. Seriously. Next time you see my wife, I might suggest you do a little bow of respect to her.

After the dilation, another mock transfer with the tube. Smooth sailing this time...yea! Then, measuring the cyst again. Same size...bummer but we still had time for it to go down. We would wait it out since the alternative would be the same as having the difficult part of the IVF procedure to drain the cyst. After all that her junk has and will have to go through, we decided to wait it out. So, that's what we are doing...waiting.

Now, let me take you back a week or two. Heidi and I were having an impromptu fertility conversation in the kitchen. It resulted in finding out that someone we knew was pregnant again. We were so excited and happy for her and her partner but we were also a little sad for us. Natural response, I guess, but it was a little bit of a last straw for Heidi. She confessed that she had been so sad for so long and that as hard as she tried, she couldn't make herself happy because she wanted so badly for this to work. She didn't want to tell me how unhappy she was because she didn't want me to be sad too. It was a hard conversation because my job as her wife is to make her happy. I was sad because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make this happen; I had no control over the end result. That conversation stuck in my head. There was nothing I could do to change this but the sadness stayed with me.

Back to present week. Every now and again, Heidi makes me take her to a puppy store so she can hold and cuddle random puppies. She has forever wanted a King Charles Cavalier puppy but because of the cost and competing fertility treatments, it was always a "someday we'll get one" conversation. Well, this particular week during our random visit to the puppy store, lo and behold, there in the back of the store, off the market for sale, sat a King Charles Cavalier puppy. He wasn't with the general population of confined or jailed puppies; he was in isolation, so to speak. He was sporting a slight cold and until the vet cleared him, he wasn't allowed to go home with anyone. The lady at the shop must have seen the longing in Heidi's eyes and she let her hold the puppy. He was, to say the least, a handful; adorable, energetic, kissy faced. But more than that, he made her smile. A deep smile...one that went all the way to her heart. We left, smiling for our time spent with the puppy. That night, he kept popping into my head. He made her smile. He lightened her heart. The next day of our staycation, we were trying to figure out what to do. I suggested we take another trip to the puppy store to gauge her reaction. She looked a little incredulous, like why would we do that? So, I told her that I thought we should maybe think about getting him. I told her my reasons. Usually, my frugal wife would have immediately said no. But I think she knew she needed this. She needed something to make her happy, to help soften some of the disappointment of the past two years. So, we did what any heterosexual couple unsuccessfully trying to have a baby does...we adopted. We just adopted an eleven-week-old puppy instead of a child. Meet Ty...our newest addition.

Now, while you are oohhing and aaahhing about how cute he is, know this. There is a method to my madness, oh yes there is. Not only is my goal to make my wife happy, but I am also here to trick the universe. (Insert Dr. Evil laugh here)

What happens to every straight couple who finally decide to give up on having a baby and adopt? They "accidentally" get pregnant. Well, that won't work for lesbians. If she ends up pregnant without a doctor's assistance, we'll be headed for divorce court. BUT...if we "adopt", then go to seemingly unimportant doctor visits, focusing only on our new addition, just staying for the visit because we have to, like a physical or pap smear or something mundane like that, we will be so focused on our new baby boy that we might "accidentally" get pregnant. I'll pause while you revel in my brilliance...I know it's a lot to take in. Take your time...

So, there it is and here we are. We have our new baby boy, who is ridiculously adorable. We also got our period, which means nothing because we're not doing any of that fertility stuff, we've adopted (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Our next step is to work on housetraining our new addition and maybe we'll do a pop in at our doctor's office just to see if that pesky cyst has shrunk. No reason, just to know. And maybe Heidi will take some kind of vitamin shots to give her energy to take care of our new addition. Maybe they'll be a lot like the old IVF shots she took, but these are different; we aren't trying to get pregnant. Duh. So, between our flight to heaven, our fertility statue, and our "accidental" opportunity for pregnancy, this could be looking good. I'm optimistic. I mean, chaos has entered our lives in the form of four very small legs. It only makes sense that the universe pile on some more midnight feedings...

Today's Episode..."The Mock Transfer"

Today was doctor's appointment #1 in our last little endeavor to have a baby. It came during my birthday week so I'm hoping that is a good sign...like, a belated birthday gift kind of thing.


We went in for a mock transfer. It's like a fake IVF where the doctor routes out his cervical path. Heidi tends to have "difficulties", meaning whenever she has the chance to make something difficult, she does. With respect to IVF, or even IUI, her cervix sometimes gets a little pushy. What does that mean? Well, it means that when the doctor is trying to feed the small tube into her cervix to spit the embryos into her uterus, sometimes her cervix likes to push back. To prepare for that, the doc did a faker-baker transfer, shooting some water into the ole' uttie and checking for path problems (like rocks or sticks on a walkway) and other obstructions.

We found a couple little things...one, the obstruction isn't something we can move or reduce the size of, it just is. So, instead of risking any damage to the embryos when we put them back in by having them bang against this little push-back, we are going to dilate her cervix a little and hope that the transfer goes more smoothly. Lucky Heidi gets to go back to the doctor's on Friday to have a needle plunged into her cervix to numb the little barrier between va-jay-jay to uterus, wait a few minutes and then place a pipe-like instrument into her cervix until it gets larger and larger and larger. She'll then wander around for the next few weeks with a slightly dilated cervix.

Big fat aside here: When (not if, but when) we have a kid, if said kid is ever in a verbal disagreement with his other mother and during said heated discussion, if said child ever says to said other mother "you don't love me", I am going to beat said child with a print-out of this blog. The things that she is going through to create said child are nothing short of amazing. She is nothing short of amazing. Said child better never, ever say that. I think I can, without reservation, say I have never met another woman who had to work so hard to have a baby to love, to cherish. So, yea, child-to-be, make note.

Anywho...back to the uterus. During the ultrasound, we also found a rather large cyst. Nothing too alarming, there's actually a technical name for it but um, well, I don't remember it. In short, it's a leftover from ovulation where the follicle didn't "explode" but the egg left the container. So, the shot Heidi is currently taking twice a day (Lupron) should effectively reduce the size of said cyst. If it doesn't go away within ten days of starting the Lupron (we've been on it about six days now), we'll just keep shooting Heidi up until it does diminish. It won't make us have to wait a whole other cycle to do the IVF, it'll just delay her current cycle. We don't want to move forward with the cyst because it can adversely impact that ovary from making enough follicles. We want as many follicles as we can get.

We did have a question for Dr. Welden today...how many embryos would he be willing to put in this IVF since this is our last try? Last time, we did two embryos and got pregnant. But it didn't stick. We had been tossing around the idea of having three or four placed back into the oven but we weren't sure what Dr. Welden would think about this. After a little smile and a slight twinkle in his eye, he agreed to three. Four was pushing it a bit, I suppose.

So that's where we are, my peeps. Step one. Now we are waiting for Heidi's monthly visitor to visit (I have it on good authority that it may be knock, knock, knockin' on Heidi's door as I type). Then...the rest of the meds. We picked up the big expensive drug, Follistem, today. It's chillin' in the fridge. That means, if you happen to hang out at our house, watch what you grab from the fridge. You may end up amazingly hormonal and not have a clue why. LOL

Oh, and for good measure, we are going hang gliding tomorrow. The ranch where we are doing this is not too far from the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum. Guess who they have as visitors at said museum? Fertility statues. I'm thinking after we take the hang gliding plunge from the sky, we'll stop by Ripley's and maybe let Heidi brush against the fertility statues a little. We'll go from close to Heaven to fertility statue...cover our bases. It can't hurt, can it?

Fertility Rule #437: Fertility is dynamic, never static.

It's been awhile since I've posted. No particular reason, laziness; nothing relevant to share. I'm touched by the people who have reached out to see what's been going on since I've taken a sabbatical from blogging. Not much and a lot, all at the same time, I suppose.

Our last blog left us preparing to do the big egg count for our first IUI with RMG. Since we were on a new protocol and new meds, we had no idea of how little V's egg makers would react. Would they create even one follicle? Would they create too many follicles? We didn't know. Thank goodness for ultrasounds that give us the ability to actually count them before we inseminate. That way, we would know how many potential kiddies there are in there. I mean, that's the idea. The only thing that would throw a wrench into the works would be if Heidi ovulated early. But that's never happened before so nothing to worry about this time either. I mean, she's nothing if not consistent. . Day 12. Ovulation. Let me clarify: ovulation is not supposed to happen until day 14 or 15. Our ultrasound wasn't scheduled until day 13. Ovulation. How? What? How? Wrench thrown.

Day 12 started with Heidi thinking she was ovulating. Because we've been trying to get pregnant for, oh, I don't know, about two years, we happen to have quite the stash of ovulation predictor kits, pregnancy kits, pregnancy meds, etc., etc., etc. Short story...we had an ovulation test so we decided to take it to see if she was ovulating. Why is this important, you ask? Well, first of all, if you're asking you need to take yourself back to health class and learn how this works. Geez. If you're just being fertility lazy, here's why...if she's ovulating BEFORE we do the ultrasound, we can't count her follicles. Why does this matter? Because we haven't ever used the regimen of meds we are on now so we don't know how they work on her. Remember full strength Clomid put her in egg-making overdrive? We had no idea if these would create one or ten. We do not want ten. Why else would this matter? Well, if she ovulates now and our IUI is scheduled too late, we miss this cycle. There is only a 24-36 hour window to knock her up. Worse, we inseminate and there's no eggie there for the spermie to try to find. So, yea, ovulation a few days early can be a bit of a problem. Good thing we have a doctor's office we can call and get guidance from, huh?

Yea, about that...so Heidi calls the doctor's office that morning because she is in fact ovulating. The nurse or sonographer gal, whoever, whatever she was, is giving Heidi a little attitude about taking an ovulation test because Heidi was specifically instructed not to LH track. Heidi informs her was wasn't tracking; she advises that she felt like she was ovulating, didn't want to miss our window and so she took the test. She says this several times because the sonographer is apparently upset that we were tracking. We were not tracking. Heidi kind of knows what it feels like to ovulate. She's been slightly attuned to her cycle for, oh, about two frigging years now. So, yea, she's pretty attuned. The appointment for the ultrasound was cancelled and the appointment for the IUI was scheduled for the next day...day 13. Well, hells bells, that was a whole unexpected, chaotic mess. Geez oh pete! Thank goodness that's over. Huh?

Day 13, inspermination day. We are required to arrive an hour and a half early so our spermcicle has time to defrost. We check in and hang out at the office waiting for Heidi's turn to get knocked up. Thank goodness for smart phones...waiting rooms are much less frustrating when you have the power of the world wide web at your fingertips! Finally our turn! Our inspermination technician (the title I officially bestow upon her) arrives in the room. Her name? Good question. We don't actually know. Pause here...does it make Heidi slightly slutty if she gets knocked up by a person whose name she doesn't even know? Kind of makes Teen Mom look chaste, huh? I digress...

Before we do the deed, we bring up the LH surge and communicate to unknown knocker-upper that we were actually a little offended at the tone taken by the unnamed sonogram tech about tracking. I told unknown baby-maker that this wasn't our first rodeo, we had been through this for two years so we know how it works. She apologizes and we let it go. Why? Because that's how we roll. We got some baby making to focus on, not being pissy about the lecture we got about tracking our surge. Much like the first time with a high school jock, the "injection" only took about five minutes. Very fast. Mostly painless except the unexpected jolt at the top of Heidi's uterus when the catheter made its way a little too far up. Yowza! A little jump on the table, the more G-force to suck the sperm into the uterus and knock her up. Maybe this was their secret recipe for success!!! Tricky, ingenious even! The whole experience was exhausting so, well, we went home to take a nap. Sidebar: Heidi and I have found that most of life's really ponderable challenges are made less intriguing with a little nap. We have solved most of the mysteries of the world, simply by napping. So, yes, this little pregnancy challenge was going to be overtaken and defeated with a nap.

Day 15 welcomes a new player into the fertility game: progesterone suppositories. What are these, you query? Well, shaped much like a bullet and a larger than a 9mm bullet (that's my only frame of reference...I'm not a huge gun expert. Pft.), the progesterone suppository is designed for vaginal insertion and absorption in the body part located most convenient to the uterus. The vagina. Hence "vaginal" progesterone suppository. Let me take some creative, descriptive liberties here and paint a clear picture for you...I'd hate for any of you to not benefit from every detail available in our fertility journey. The vagina bullet must be inserted twice a day for seventeen days. They must also be refrigerated. Therefore, the COLD vagina bullet is inserted twice a day. In her vagina. Digitally (meaning, no instrument to help...just the little pointer finger). So, the cold vaginal bullet is refrigerated for a reason. They melt with heat. Take a moment to think about where in this scenario heat might come into play...think about it, think about it. Ding, ding, ding. So, think a little deeper (no pun intended, dirty minded freaks!) about what happens when something meant to be kept cold so it doesn't melt is inserted into a warm body cavity where science, or common sense, would dictate that it might melt. What impact does that have? I'll give you a multiple choice guess:

A. The vaginal bullet melts, drains from its "cavity" and leaves an oily mess in ones panties.

B. A sudden "flow" happens upon standing, wherein an immediate appearance of a urinal accident appears to have happened, usually at work and other inconvenient locations.

C. Several pairs of panties and work pants have more oil slicks than the Gulf of Mexico after BP uprooted and left.

D. All of the above.

To say the least, Heidi hated the vaginal bullet. However, the doctor told her she preferred these to the shot because they were closer to the intended target. Heidi would prefer the shot.

I considered drawing out this results of all of this new effort, but, well, it's been awhile since I have blogged and I have a good feeling that this is already going to be a little novella so I'll just blurt it out. Negative pregnancy test. There. I said it. All this and a big fat negative. I have to say that I am usually prepared for dealing with these tests and the potential for a negative result. I have to be honest, for whatever reason, this one was devastating to me. I don't know why this one hit me so hard. I cried. A lot. I couldn't talk to Heidi, not because I held her accountable for this, not at all. I couldn't talk to her because for the first time, I couldn't find anything positive to say. I have no glass-half-full mumbo jumbo to throw out there to deflect the sting of this pain. I had nothing. I felt emotionally and physically spent. I stayed in bed the whole evening and when Heidi finally came to bed, I still had nothing. I held her and cried but I had nothing to say except that I didn't think I could do this anymore. Not exactly the fairy tale ending we were hoping for.

So, fast forward a couple of days. After accepting what was our fifth sucky reality with IUI, we had a talk. It was a hard talk but we did it anyway. We talked about how far we would travel down this path. We talked about what it would take to make us call it quits. Despite thinking this would work two years ago with the first IUI and spending, oh my gosh, like $2500 (so much money!), here we were. Five IUI's, one IVF and one FET later. And $2500? Puh-leaze. Such a small amount compared to what we've spent on this endeavor. I would love to say that money is no object in our quest to make a baby, but unfortunately that whole lottery thing hasn't panned out for us and our jobs won't give us a "fertility cost of living" salary increase. We have limited means. So we had "the talk". I won't bore you with all of the sordid details of a somber and difficult conversation, but I will share with you the ultimate resolution we made. We would try one more IUI and one more IVF. If we didn't get pregnant with either of these, our journey would end. That was it. Two more tries. If the powers that be...call it God, Jehovah, whatever deity name you care to bestow, if that power decided we should be mommies together, this would have to be the time.

This brings us to cycle #2 of IUI with the Reproductive Medical Group. So much of our hopes sit with what is literally one-half of our remaining tries to make a baby. Last IUI.

Heidi's cycle starts. Here goes...we start the same protocol again. This time, we are scheduled to do our egg-counting ultrasound on day 11. Don't want to miss our window, now do we?

Day 10 brings an unexpected phone call from our new friends at the Reproductive Medical Group. We were advised that the blood tests Heidi had to do for the first IVF would expire soon. Apparently, they are only good for one year. Nothing for us to worry about right now because we aren't doing IVF this cycle. Well, actually, wrong. RMG has a policy...they want those blood tests done every year for IUI. They require them twice per year if we are doing IVF. And at their lab. Huh. Need I remind you, dear friends, that our insurance covers nada with this group? Not even blood tests? Need I also show you my bank statement demonstrating that these tests run around twelve hundred pesos? Huh. Oh yea, forgot to tell you one more thing. I'm also going to need to do all of these tests. At their lab. No insurance coverage. And if you are just tuning into this blog, let me remind my dear audience that I am not a boy. I am not donating sperm to this endeavor. I am not donating eggs to this endeavor. I am donating cold, hard cash...said cash was not being blood tested. Why would I need to take the same blood tests (at their lab) that Heidi had to take, even though I wasn't a physical participant in this process? Response: It's their policy. Huh. I wonder, as a layman, how testing for communicable blood issues impacts fertility more than twice the rate that the FDA requires? I wonder about this little policy, I wonder. You don't think it's a policy created merely to generate revenue, do you? Nah...I'm getting paranoid. Pft.

Day 11, back at RMG, follicle counting day. Woot-woot! We are hoping for 3 or 4 follicles. This is our day. Yea baby...glass half full is back! Can't wait...gettin' ready to knock up my wife again. Again we have a different sonographer, no-name #3. Heidi's uterine lining looks good (so she says). I have to say I've always admired the measurements associated with her uterine lining. She makes a wife proud. Now to the big moment...please don't let there be too many follicles! Remember, this is our first ultrasound with this medicine. Please, please don't make it, like 8. That would be so many. We can't inseminate with eight follicles, no way, no day (although at this point, we may actually have been willing to risk it). Big moment...wait for it, drum roll...1 follicle. Yep 1. Let me spell that out for you in case you fear you must have misread it. One. ONE. No-name #3 says, Great! We will inseminate in two days." With one? Huh. Before leaving the room she, once AGAIN, brings up LH tracking from last cycle. She proceeds to say well maybe if you were not tracking last month it would have worked. Can you say beating a dead f**king horse? I again consult my layman's medical reference guide to try to independently determine how pissing on a stick will create a negative response to IUI. Are you f**king serious? (Excuse my French, but seriously no-name...how dare you. You don’t even know us. You don't know Heidi. We aren't new to this game. Your redundancy is insulting and quite frankly, I'd like to take that GD ultrasound wand and slap you upside your GD head with it. Yea. That's what I'd like to do.

After our appointment, we converse and both agree that we are extremely disappointed with the Reproductive Medical Group and their stream of no-name, uninvested techs and sonographers, spewing their ridiculous "no tracking" lectures. We seriously consider Dr. Welden again. At a frigging minimum, Dr. Welden actually knows who we are. He cared if we got pregnant. He cared about whether we would inseminate with one follicle. He wasn't just trying to make a buck off of us.

Aside here: Outside of our regularly scheduled program, we previously communicated with Pam, our nurse at Dr. Welden's, about our frustration with her lack of response. It was worked out. Over, done with, gone. We would have considered going back to them, except we had already committed to ourselves that we would give RMG an honest-to-goodness try.

We place a call to Dr. Welden's office to seek his advice on whether or not we should to do this insemination. We want to increase our chance…that’s definitely not going to happen with 1 follicle. Dr. Welden's office advice was that with only one insemination per cycle, it wasn't really worth it to try. Of course, there was a chance, just not the statistical chance we wanted to take, especially not with one-half of our remaining tries.

Heidi and I talk some more. Do we want to keep going back to RMG? We have an IUI appointment on Thursday for our sixth inspermination try. Do we want to continue with one follicle? What happens after that? If it doesn't work, we would have to spend a couple thousand dollars on blood tests to do an IVF through their office. They've already left such a bad taste in our mouth that we both feel like we just don't want to go back. What does that mean?

Welcome back Dr. Weldon. We let their office know that we are done with the RMG and want to come back. We ask the nurse to ask Dr. Welden what he thinks we should do: another IUI after 5 failed ones or IVF. Dr. Welden's opinion: IVF. Huh. A slight change of plans.

So this is it, my friends. Our final attempt. We had to get a loan to pay for this cycle (thank goodness we don't pay Jessica's rent anymore!) This is it. All cards are on the table. We have and are putting everything we have on the table - all emotion, all hopes, all finances. Here we go. Powers that be...this is your chance. Bless us, my friend, bless us this time.

And for those of you that believe in the power of prayer or positive thinking or both, we need you something fierce. You've always been in our corner and have helped us through this journey. One last favor we have to ask...on your knees. Give it all you got...we need your prayers.

We are at the beginning of the end.

Last time...come on, Heidi. Let's go make a baby.