The Blog That Time Forgot

I am so sorry. I have been really busy with the following: vacationing, starting my new job, flying to Vegas for a lameass conference, getting the flu, getting a cold, and getting a stye in my eye. That last thing isn't really that time consuming, truth be told, but I wanted to mention it. Anyway, it has been wayyyy too long since I wrote in here and I miss it!

Things are chugging along. Work wise I started my new job and I really like it. I have an ASSISTANT (for the first time in my life) who manages my calendar (which is weird as she wrote me the other day, "You are going to Xanadu???" totally apropos of nothing) and answers my phone. She even offered to get me coffee but I informed nicely that her my arms and legs were not painted on. She is lovely and I feel totally undeserving and like a giant imposter, like in some meeting where big wigs are talking they are going to suddenly all turn to me and say "Holy shit, we made a mistake, you are like 10 and used to wear Shaun Cassidy pants and cannot possibly be our senior HR person!". All told though i do not miss my old job and think I made the right choice.

Fertility wise we saw the hemotologist who got no points for bedside manner (she was so shy I thought we could make her cry in about 10 minutes) but who did test me for some other crap that will determine if i need to medicate for clots when I get surgery or fly or some shit. Does this end? Everytime she said 'MTHFR' gene J and I sniggered. Heh heh. Mother fucker gene. Heh heh. As one of my hometown friends wrote, "what's next, the WTF gene?". So I call Dr ScaredyPants in 10 days to find out about these other levels. She did say that if we cycle again it is Lepronex for me right after retreival and up until potentially 6 weeks AFTER the kid is born. Shots. Every night. Forever. Or it will seem so.

We talked last night (me and J, not me and Dr SP) and think that we may be the perfect example of hope over experience and cycle again in Nov or Dec. Three was J's magic number and we feel like maybe one more time might truly allow us to breath and believe we gave it that old college try. I am starting to warm to the idea, if for no other reason than with this MF gene knowledge maybe we can stop the madness? Or not. And not to say that the miscarriages are getting easier, but, well, the last one was because it was so early. Its like I have been through hell so in going back we at least know what to expect if we get there.

In adoption news we are chugging along, the home study paperwork is done and sent in, and the Planning Questionairre with the Dark Nights of the Soul questions about what race of child we would take and the medical issues we would accept is almost ready to go too. We needed to get some insurance info about my new coverage which we got. Today we are speaking to a friend's partner, who is a Pediatrician, to get the medical info and then we are golden. Once those go off we will get the home study packet which probably has 32857932875837 additional forms we need to get. We are scheduled to do the fingerprinting at the end of July, and will need to start on the adoption profile (sort of our match.com profile for birthmothers) soon. Once all that is done, we are live!!!

Last night J and I stayed up and made a list of baby names we like. So fun. We laughed a lot but also found a nice list of girls and boys names that we agreed on and so now we will just wait and see what our kid looks like to make a decision. We are starting to get excited and also realizing this is real. Guys, we may actually be parents sometime in the next 12 months!

Ah ha!!!

Had my RPL with Dr S yesterday and sort of to my positive surprise there was something wrong!

I am positive for the MTHFR mutation. (Is it just me or does MTHFR look like a shortened word for MotherFucker? Shall we call it that?). What this means is that I have a blood clotting disorder that puts me at a higher risk factor for heart disease and blood clots (to what extent I have no idea but I am starting to take baby aspirin every day just in case). The MF mutation has also been tied to early pregnancy loss - my blood is too thick and it is possible that the fetus doesn't get enough to survive.

He was very clear that while this issue CAN cause m/c, it may not be the full reason for my two...though he wants me to go to a hematologist to get a sense of what the protocol would be if we did decide to cycle again. This is a treatable issue - it would require that I start on a blood thinner like Heparin right after retrieval to start thinning my blood so that the transfer would be supported. Heparin is a subcutaneous shot, in my gut, and it easy. Thank god.

Here is some more info from some webpage by Dr Steph.an Mo.ll:
MTHFR stands for Methylene-Tetra-Hydro-Folate-Reductase. MTHFR is an enzyme, which we all have in the cells of our body. It is needed to metabolize and get rid of homocysteine. High homocysteine levels are a risk factor for blood clots in the veins (DVT, PE) or arteries (heart attack, stroke, arteriosclerosis). Some people have a variant of this enzyme, which is called "thermolabile MTHFR" or C677T MTHFR. (My note: I have this particular mutation) It is due to a single mutation of the MTHFR gene. This variant does not metabolize homocysteine as well as the normal MTHFR enzyme, and blood homocysteine levels in individuals with this variant enzyme may, therefore, be slightly higher than in individuals with the normal enzyme.The MTHFR mutation is extremely common:
44 of the population have the normal enzyme
44 % are heterozygous for the mutation (i.e. have 1 variant gene). These individuals have some normal enzyme and some of the thermolabile variant of the enzyme.
12 % are homozygous for the mutation (i.e. have 2 variant genes). All of these individuals' enzyme is the thermolabile variant.

So I am special. Only 12% of the population have it. Wow I feel so lucky.

Seriously tho, I am so glad something turned up - at least we know what we are dealing with. And I feel 4% more positive that if we cycled again we may have success. Man, tho, can you say SHOTS??? I would be taking multiple a day. Is that really worth it?

I also spoke with the Adoption agency yesterday, they got our stuff. Because we are in NJ and they are certified to do home studies in NJ they said it would go quickly.

Hooray!

Checking in

Today is my last day of work so this will be short - I am running around packing and saying goodbye. Not sure how I feel, a combo of sadness and relief. This place is whack.

I leave on Saturday to see my niece in LA and I am so excited. She is learning to sing now, and sings the "falling down, falling down" part of London Bridges over and over again. She also calls every older woman "gamma" thinking it is my mom. I love her so.

J and I just sent in our adoption application with the first of many checks. We basically just sent in our intention to adopt and now get the homestudy application which will take a few months to put together. We saw a sample one last night and almost threw up - it is so much info. It is dreadfully unfair (I promise not to say this often) that adoptive parents must list every illness, every problem, have a physical, get background checks and fingerprinted, and get references from a million people, and biological parents just have to have sex. Sigh. Anyway we are excited to get started. And some of you will be getting phone calls from us to provide references about the fact that we are crime-free,

Very close family friends sent us a book on adoption written by someone from my small, small hometown who is an adoption expert and is cited in many of my books. The best part is their two beautiful kids (one biological and one adopted from Korea) are on the front! I can't wait to read the book, and we so, so appreciated the gift. These two will be guiding us through this process as they went through it over 20 years ago. I feel like we have so many guardian angels through this, just yesterday I spoke with a co-worker in LA who mentioned to me that her sister's three kids are adopted, and she has hooked me up with her sister to be able to talk and share stories. My bff from grad school also offered up a few people to talk to. Our cup runneth over!!!

J and I are looking forward to focusing more on our relationship through this - infertility has many hidden costs and one of them is that sometimes the relationship between married people can suffer when both parties turn inward. We are connecting very well now and communicating fantastically about everything, and I am so, so thankful that he is so embracing of adoption and so excited. He will be a wonderful dad.

We do see the RE today to get the results of my RPL panel. Part of me doesn't give a crap anymore, if I never cycle again I will be fine. Not to say we won't, but right now adoption is #1 on our list.

I will blog from LA I am sure!