Ocean Dreamer » docs & the medical establishment

blog birthday! some reflections on 2 years of blogging & TTCing…

erin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:05:35 +0000

I started this blog two years ago today. I started it after reading a post on the old blog Uterus x2 called “build it, they will come.” The gist of the post is that the owners of that blog – a fabulous couple whose blogs I have followed for a long time now – started noticing all these folks who were dealing with infertility who, once they started blogging, also started getting pregnant. So they decided to do the same. I’m not big on the whole positive-thinking, visualize-your-wants-and-they-will-appear-before-you mentality, but I liked the sentiment. More importantly, I had searched the blogosphere for tales of other single LGBTQ folks starting families and found the results woefully lacking. So I started this blog as a way to build community with and for others in similar situations.

Now I sit here two years later and reflect on the process so far. When I first started this blog, I was TTCing at home with ICI-ready frozen sperm. I wasn’t taking any meds and was wary of having to do so. I’m not sure if its a Seattle-specific phenomenon or something common to dyke culture in other places as well, but in Seattle at least, using meds to get pregnant (and sometimes also using a bank as opposed to a known donor) is seriously frowned upon. I think it comes from the whole DIY movement – creating a baby is seen by many as something that is ideally DIY as well. And of course its wonderful if that works for you … but for some of us that road dead ends and we have to try something else. It took me a while to grow comfortable with that.

So from TTCing at home, I headed to my gyno’s office and then on to doing IUIs with femara at a fertility clinic. My experience at the clinic hasn’t always been positive (timing of insems was done on their schedule, not my body’s, for example), but I was also surprised to find that I had a great deal of control over what meds I took and what interventions I did when. In addition, I began seeing an acupuncturist who specializes in fertililty and who also gave me (terrible tasting!) herbs to take 2-3 times a day. After my first five femara cycles were unsuccessful, I started combining a double dose of femara with HCG shots, and continued with the acupuncture and chinese herbs. I have now done three of the femara/HCG cycles, none of which were successful. So here I sit getting ready for IVF, and I am alternately excited at the new possibilities and increased chance of success on the one side and freaked out at all that is involved as well as the medical risks on the other side. I’ve talked to a few folks who’ve done IVF – and read some of y’all’s blogs about it – and, for the most part, the consensus has been that its not as bad as people thought before they started trying. I have my 2-3 hour (!) intake appointment on Monday for the IVF, and will likely start birth control next month and the actual IVF procedure in June. (I’ll also probably have to take ~2 weeks off work in June, too, because of the daily ultrasound monitoring! How exactly do people work while doing IVF – especially as teachers, where you can’t just leave work for an hour or so and make up the time later?)

My blogging has changed since I first started Ocean Dreamer as well. When I first started it, I started it with the intention of building community for other single LGBTQ parents/parents-to-be – and also of building community with LGBTQ parents/parents-to-be in general. As a former social worker, this fit quite easily in my professional mind and within my professional boundaries. At times I felt I didn’t share my full self on here because I was living within the confines of professional boundaries instead of personal ones (of course, I would never share everything in a public forum, but I hope you know what I mean by the difference). I shared some of my misadventures on here (such as refilling the tank), but I hesitated to share much of my real feelings about the process. Now, though, my feelings around that – and my relationship to this blog and the community – have changed and I imagine you will find my posts to be more complete now and in the future than they were in the past.

I am hopeful as I look into the future. I recently had a conversation with some friends over whether saying “I’ll be a mother some day” was good (in that I really believe it will happen some day) or bad (in that positive thinking in any form can be damaging to folks dealing with infertility and that you don’t really know that you’ll be a mother some day – there is no way to be 100% certain). I believe – as did these friends for the most part – that it is good. I do believe I will be a mother some day. It may be through pregnancy, it may be through a different path, but I wholly believe that one day I will get there. And, for today at least, I am feeling hopeful about it.

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the doc visit (or, small world, eh?)

erin — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:13:07 +0000

School is finally calming down some and I have a bit of free time, so I wanted to give all of y’all an update. As I said here, I think there may be something wrong with my cycles since my previous one lasted only 24 days (with only a 9 day luteal phase), and so I made an appointment with the nurse practitioner at my doctor’s office. So I had my appointment today and guess what? The nurse practitioner also happens to be in my Maybe Baby group and is preggers herself! Small world, eh? And who knows, she may even read this blog, since I did send the link to the Maybe Baby email list awhile back. As far as I know, she’s the first queer doctor I’ve had (other than the docs at queer camp), and I loved it – no need to explain what I was doing or worry that she might be homophobic (not that I’ve had much experience with homophobic doctors in Seattle, but you never know.)

So, basically what she said is that she’s not sure why my cycle’s have been off but that she thinks I should start doing IUIs instead of home insems. My original plan was to do home insems for 6 cycles and then switch to IUIs – I’ve done five, so that’s pretty close. I just hope my sperm bank will let me exchange my pre-ordered ICI vials for IUI vials. She also only wants to do one IUI per cycle, which means I will actually save money each month even though it’s more invasive. Ha! Oh, and she told me to stop using my fertility monitor and just use the clear.blue OPKs each afternoon (ideally between 2 and 5pm) – testing in the afternoon apparently tends to be more accurate and timely. She doesn’t think I needed to start on clomid right now, though if I don’t get pregnant after 3 cycles, she wants to refer me to a fertility clinic, where they will most likely put me on it.

I did an insem this month and could be preggers right now (more on that soon), but if I’m not, I’m going to skip the next cycle because of the holidays and will try again in January.

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and … no

erin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:38:44 +0000

Nope, not preggers. I actually think something may be wrong. Until I started TTC, I always had a *very* regular cycle. Not regular down to the exact hour on the exact 28th day like one woman I know, but regular enough that my cycle was always 28 to 30 days long. Not the past couple months, though. My previous cycle was 36 days long. This past cycle – 24. My luteal phase was only 9 days long this time.

Now, my luteal phase has always been a little funky because my temp doesn’t rise right after I ovulate. I asked a midwife about it awhile ago and she said it wasn’t a problem as long as my luteal phase was still 12+ days long. Which it has been … until now.

So I called my doctor’s office today to make an appointment to have someone look at my charts and give me some advice. I now have an appointment with the nurse practitioner in December. The receptionist also wanted me to talk to their triage nurse, in case the problem could be solved without an appointment. So I spoke to her briefly and, without looking at my charts (since we were talking over the phone), she just said, “it sounds like you could be a candidate for clomid.” I was shocked. I was expecting something a bit more, well, gentle. I’ve heard so many horror stories about clomid – I’d really rather avoid it if at all possible. And the prospect of having twins as a single mom – well, I’ve always wanted twins, but I’m not sure about doing it as a single parent. As for the nurse, if this is what she does all day, then surely she has realized that it’s not exactly a statement patients take lightly – let alone take lightly *without having had an exam or anything more than a literally >2 minute conversation!* I was expecting her to say, “oh, maybe you should be on progesterone” or something – you know, because the problem is mainly with my luteal phase. But, no, that’s not what she said.

Could this be caused by the chemical pregnancy? I mean, I’ve never had weird cycles before and then I suddenly start having them right after it. I know women who have a miscarriage can have weird cycles for awhile afterwards, so maybe this is the same??? Please? If any of y’all have advice, I would really, really love to hear it. Thanks in advance.

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