Wednesday, May 31, 2006

WHAT IS THE DEAL?!?

What is the deal?! It seems like everyone around us has either just adopted a baby, given birth, or is pregnant. Seriously!

Our friends, Sarah and Holly, just adopted Thea. Katey and Matt, who live in Seattle, just had their baby, Max. Rachel's buddy, Stephanie, and Stephanie's partner, just had their baby, Laurel. I also found out that a childhood friend, Brent, and his wife, just had a little boy, Jimmie. To top it all off, this week alone, I found out that my friend, Christina, is expecting, as well as another friend, Dana.

It's so damn frustrating!

Monday, May 22, 2006

XYTEX & ZYTEX

Just a funny...

The sperm bank we use is Xytex. (pronounced Zytex)

I just saw a commercial for a mouthwash called "Breath Rx, featuring Zytex".

Hahaha...

QUESTION

Okay, folks, I gotta ask -- did any of you feel any differently after insemination? I especially want to hear from those of you who got pregnant. Did you have any symptoms or any way that you felt that led you to think you were pregnant before you found out for sure?

Sunday, May 21, 2006

RACHEL SAYS...

We've had a busy month...

I finally finished my specialist degree (an EdS, which is a step between a Masters and PhD) from the university this week, which is exciting because: A) it will give me more free time B) it will give us more money because with my newest advanced degree, I will get a raise!

We're trying to get our house ready to sell, so we can move from our tiny house to one that will be more accomodating for a family. We're really excited about having a new house, but I had to promise Julianna a new wiener dog when we move. Julianna's not a fan of moving and I hope I really love our new home because I doubt she'll ever let us move again after that! The new house, which we've selected already, needs to have a lot done so it should keep us pretty busy for the summer.

As far as baby news goes -- right now, we're hanging out in maybe-baby land. We inseminated on Friday and I feel really positive and confident that things will work out, but it's hard to tell because I felt the same way last time. It's like my body and mind plays tricks on me, leaving me really confused. We'll know for sure in about two-and-a-half to three weeks. I have to say, I am really hoping this is it because this is really stressful! Additionally, I also believe that we have the world's best donor. He is absolutely beautiful and seems like he'd be a really nice person. His baby photo looks so much like my little brother, who is my favorite person, so that makes me happy. Julianna actually picked him without my input because it was a last-minute decision. (Our choice prior to that was "sold out") I have to say if this works, we'll purchase more to make baby number two down the road.

Other than that, we're planning our annual jaunt to Tybee Island for a week in the summer and I'll be spending a lot of time with my Mom while Julianna is working. I am hoping that with the sale of the house and our extra income, we'll have a little extra to take a super-nice vacation, but that's probably a long shot. We're also eagerly awaiting the opening of the university's swimming pool.

For the most part, I'm looking to take it easy this summer and enjoy myself. It's the first time ever that I've had time off from both work and school. So, hopefully, with my added level of relaxation, we'll have a better shot with this baby business. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Thursday, May 18, 2006

CHASING A NEEDLE

Last night, we went to Linda's house for her to give Rachel an HCG injection. I prepped the injection and just as Linda was about to stick Rachel, she stopped to say there wasn't any way we could use that needle. The doctor's office provided only one needle with the kit and it was the same needle that had to be stuck two different times through the rubber tip in the neck of the vials to draw up the medicine. (one vial with saline, the next with Novarel) In the process, the needle became a bit dull and certainly, you wouldn't want to be stuck with a dull needle!

Fortunately, Linda lives next door to the OB who referred us to the doctor doing the insemination, so she called him up to ask about getting a fresh needle from him. As luck would have it, he had plenty of sterile packaged needles on hand and we were able to get a new one to do the injection. Yay!

I don't know what would have happened if we had done the injection at home. Oh, wait, yes I do -- Rachel would have killed me. She's such a needle-phobe, you basically get one time to do it right with her and then it's all over. If I'd been stuck with that dull needle, one of us would have ended up hurting the other.

Lucky for us, Athens is a small town and we were able to get what we needed. One strange thing, though, the doctor's office gave us no instruction on what to do with the needles once we disposed of them. Fortunately, Linda works in a lab and said she'd dispose of them at work for us.

Anyway, I am just glad this part is all over and if for some reason we ever have to do this again, we'll be calling Linda!

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

TODAY'S APPOINTMENT

We went for Rachel's ultrasound today. The follicle wasn't quite mature enough to give the HCG injection just then, so I was trained to give the injection at home, which is to be administered at 11:00pm sharp. Then we'll return to the doctor for our insemination mid-day Friday.

There's a problem with the injection, though, which is that Rachel doesn't trust me to give it. This is rediculous, but she's convinced she needs someone with some kind of professional medical training. So, early in the day, around 4:30 or so, I called our friend, Holly (who is also the vegan adoptive parent I've written about in previous entries), who is a doctor to ask if she'd give Rachel her injection late this evening. She said yes, of course, no problem, etc. Well, then she called about 30 minutes ago, at about 10:00pm, freaking out about administering this injection. Come to find out, she hasn't given an injection of any sort in eight years! It was clear that if she as a doctor was nervous about giving the injection, then we didn't want her to do it, ya know? So, we brainstormed to figure out who else we could ask at the last minute.

As it turns out, our next door neighbor's mother, Linda, is a pharmacist and has lots of simple injection experience. This past winter alone, she administered over 800 flu shots. Our HCG shot isn't much more complex than that and Linda feels very confident about doing it, so we feel good and of course, we're really thankful to have found someone reliable to give this shot. Otherwise, I was thinking I'd have to slip Rachel some Benadryl, coax her to sleep, and then plop that injection into her quickly! haha.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

IT'S BEEN A WHILE...

So much has been going on, it's hard to know where to start...

The biggest news is that tomorrow we meet with our doctor to have an ultrasound to inspect where we are with ovulation. Then, we'll do one HCG (is that right?) injection to force a timed ovualtion. Even though we know Rachel ovulates regularly with no problem, this supposedly will help us time things better and will guarantee a quality egg, or at least that's what we've been told. After all of that, we'll return to our doctor sometime on Thursday for our second insemination. We're very nervous and very excited.

In the midst of it all, we've been through sperm hell. We'd selected two or three donors we really liked, all of whom were still in the database as of Friday. Well, we went out of town for the weekend and when we returned Sunday evening, we logged back into the database to discover that all three of the donors we liked were sold out! Talk about a panic. No worries, as all is well now. This morning, I checked the database again, just to see if by some miracle one of our guys was back in the list. They weren't, but someone new was added and he's just perfect, or at least I think so. Anyway, I feel really relieved, even though the whole act of picking a donor from a catalog is pure torture.

Tomorrow morning I'll be driving to the sperm bank an hour and a half away to retrieve our specimen in its tank and then coming back in time for our appointment. In the meantime, Rachel will be trying her best to relax.

This afternoon, she'll go for her second accupuncture appointment, which will be followed up by a massage. We're not sure how we feel about accupuncture, but it's done at the wellness center at our local hospital by a physician, so that helps a bit. You know, anything to help Rachel calm down is best and we figured that at the very least, the accupuncture couldn't hurt.

Just a tidbit of information -- Rachel had shingles last month, which is one of the reasons we had to wait a month inbetween tries. Her shingles were mild, however, and have healed up on their own without medicine. Her doctor said that the cure was worse than the illness itself, so we decided to hold out and see if she could get better on her own. Thank heavens, she did. We've also been on a regimen of prenatal vitamins, once-a-day baby aspirin, and 1500mg of Metformin daily. Hopefully, everything combined will make for a successful conception.

For now, we're just wishing we could make this special. Not that it isn't special in and of itself, but we'd like to do something nice. But it's all so scheduled and medical, it's hard to have it be sweet and special. Plus, all of this falls in the middle of the week, with the insemination on Rachel's last day of school!

So, in a nutshell, that's what we've been doing. If you wanna know more about the rest of our boring lives, check out Julianna 2006 for more.