The Over 40 Crowd

[mrscutter]

Thanks everyone for the kind words and advice. Im trying to keep the ole chin up. Notice i said ole and not old. lol. I went today to the RE. I was told to drink 25 oz of water 45 min before my appt. Well by the time I got there (one hour to get there) and had to wait, it was 2.5 hours before I could go to the bathroom. Im telling you I almost wet my pants. ha ha. They measured to see where to place the egg and to check and see how many follies i had. I had about 5 on the right and 4 or more on the left. left was covered up by a cyst that was there due to af showing up last night!! which was not fun. I will start the pill saturday and meds will start last of october. I really wanted the RE to tell me to try it or not, but she said i will have to make that decision. Given my age.(about to be 41) my chances are only 15-20 percent. That is soooo low. But she said she has two ladies right now that are 42 and 41 that are pregnant with their own eggs. So maybe it will work for me. I also did accupuncture for the first time today. As I was lying there with needles sticking out of my ears and hands and legs and feet, i was thinking I cannot believe I am here doing this. he he. Probably a funny site. Oh well gotta try every thing possible. Right? Keep me posted on your journey.

Rhonda

[Catharine]

TGIF

Good morning to everyone.

Sending out lots of PMA to everyone.

Yasmina-you made me laugh with your DH's remodeling stories.

Rhonda-keep the faith. I found acu very relaxing. The chinese doc I used was fabulous and his office called a few months back to find out what happened to us. We,DH too, use to go in every weekend for a tmt. I kind of miss it at the moment. I'm thinking of returning after the birth of DD.

So, we picked her birth day, Nov. 4. Our choices were Oct. 31 or Nov. 4. We chose Nov 4 because I couldn't imagine her learning that we chose Halloween for her birthday. I'm convinced she'll arrive before then though.

Everyone have a safe and happy weekend
All the best,
Catharine

[Catharine]

Just found this info on which states 'mandate'-[used loosely here] insurance coverage for infertility tmt. http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/50infert.htm

Oh and I forgot to mention that yesterday I asked about cord blood donation at my Ob appt and here there is no system in place to for the patient to just say yes. Although our state has had a task force for this over two years, the state does not fund cord blood banking, but they like to tell everyone they are in setting up this. The Ob said that's the south for you. She suggested I contact the private for-profit to see if they accept donations. I know I can also contact the marrow donation organization and they will also accept cord blood donations. But the point is the patient is the point person for coordinating all this. You maybe wondering why I wanted to donate. I was asked by a friend who knows a family who's wee one has leukemia and they are looking for either cordblood or marrow tissue match for transplantation. I just couldn't say no. So, now a new journey begins trying to orchestrate this.

If anyone has any words of wisdom to input on this topic. I'd love to hear from you.

Cheers!
Catharine

[children]

Hi Catharine,

Nov. 4, good day! I would not want my babies arrive on major fun day either. It is close to your due day, isn't it? I thought you are due on Nov.8?

About the cord blood, I also asked my OB last time, from his reactions, we figured not many people bank it. I called few companies and the instructions were we needed to ask our Ob to collect it and pack it ourselves and send it by FedEx all by ourselves. In the end, before we made our decision, the DD decided to come 4 days early and we did not bank anything. I did not know that we could donate it so I did not look into this. I would love to know what you found out though.

BTW. this reminded me how unprepared I was when I first give birth to my DD. I did not buy a good camera/or recorder which can record sound so I missed the chance to record my DD's cry, which was very cute and unique. I cannot regret more as she did not cry like that for long, the chance has forever lost.

Rhonda,

I am excited that you are starting your cycle already and I will be here anxiously following your progress. Your RE sounded like she has good experience with advanced age women that is good! Both Catharine and I used our own eggs. We have few more over 40 women here on board also got pg with their own eggs, some of them even got pg naturally while waiting for their next cycles...

Oh, I also did Yoga 4 Fertility (http://www.amazon.com/Yoga-4-Fertility- ... 668&sr=1-2), which I found the most efficient way to relax me. She has produced a newer version now, it could be even better, but I bought the 2001 version.

Good luck!

Yasmina

[mrscutter]

Catharine,
Nov 4th is a good day. My birthday is Nov 7th. I wil be in the middle of all of the IVF stuff and turning 41. Yikes!!! Im so happy for you. I can feel your excitement. Reading the boards about ladies pregnant is so awesome. Sometimes at work when all the pregnant women (5 of them) are rubbing their belly and talking about how excited they are I get so down. But on here we are all going through the same thing and it is so wonderful when one of us gets that BFP. I love it. I am fortunate however in the fact that I do have two wonderful children. My daughter is 19 and my son is 14. Its just that my DH doesn't have any children of his own and he and his parents really want one so badly. I pray I can give them one. MY kids are actually excited. But my DD says she wants it to be a boy because "there is only one princess in this house" ha ha. lol. Take care.

Rhonda

Yasmina,
It is so encouraging to know that other 40 year olds got pregnant. I need to seriously check into the yoga for relaxation because I am a huge bundle of stress. Even though I workout, it doesn't help me stop stressing. I guess this board helps me though. Just hearing of others and their situations gives me hope.

Rhonda

[teachertam]

Hello all:

Welcome to Rhonda. We live in Indiana and IVF insurance coverage is not mandated either. I used an online drug company to get my fertility meds. It was a lot cheaper. It was Freedom Drugs. They deliver the drugs right to your door in a freezer pack. I remember the drugs costing between $2000 - $3000 per cycle. Keep the faith. I had my Andrew when I was 42 using my own eggs. As a matter of fact, I got pregnant naturally while waiting to do a frozen egg cycle. I had a HSG x-ray where they shoot dye through your tubes to check for a blockage. I did not have any blockage, but I think that procedure must have helped me get pregnant. I think my problem was implantation, as I never had any problems with my eggs fertilizing and/or dividing. Maybe the dye helped clean my uterine lining as well.

Catharine: We decided to bank Andrew's cord blood. The cord blood company sent us a kit to take to the hospital. The OB then used the kit when she harvested the cord. We then had to call an 800 number for a messenger to pick up the kit at the hospital. We remodeled our house over the summer. It was very stressful, as I had to keep Andrew out of the contractor's way.

Jen: Welcome back. It is good to hear from you.

Yasmina: How are you doing? Have you chosen a name for your little guy yet?

Take care all,
Tammy

[children]

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a good weekend, we had a busy one since we are planning to move our DD to big girls bed, we finally got her own chest, night table, and a twin-sized bed! Her room will be dressed up more like a girl's room soon.

We also plan to start night time diaper training and the goal is to get her diaper free before the second one comes along! She finally used daycare's toilet for poo poo for the first time last week. We taught her teachers some Chinese and French for pee and poo. Daytime potty training at home for Eloise has been smooth and easy so far, she has only few accidents for pees in the last few weeks (she regressed some after we left her alone with her babysitter for 5 days when we were in Montreal), she has been accident-free for poop for very long time, I don't even remember when was the last time that she had it! At daycare though, she tends to tell her teachers after her actions! Since she does tell, the teachers are willing to try now and we decided to give her regular panties in two weeks!


Rhonda,

I am so happy to know that you have already two children, which made me feel less guilty when I speak about our children! That means it is not new to you going through pg and raising kids and things like that. You will also be able to give us advice in how diaper training, feeding solid food, taking care of colic kids etc...

I saw you other posts in other threads, I don't have any more ivf drugs left since I did my fresh cycles 3 years ago and gave them away the leftover drugs already. To save money, I always order minimal amount to start with - the delivery is overnight and free of charge, so it should be easy to handle. Last time, my RE asked me to get two 14-day kits of lupron, since I kind of know that I don't need so much, I just got 1 kit, it worked out ok - I used only 1/2 of the dose in the end to prolong the last few more day.

Good luck on this cycle and let us know your progress!


Catharine,

Any signs of your DD comes early? I had some sharp pain in my right breast last night which woke me up! My boobs did not grow until second tri-m and then they continue to grow like monsters. In my last pg, I had big boob in the first TriM but they never grew more after that. Each pg is dif, I guess, the only consistent thing is it makes me feel bad about food! I still don't like to eat.


Take care, everyone here!

Yasmina

[children]

Hi Tammy,

Nice to hear from you also! My post just crossed with yours, no, we have not decide any names yet, I picked few, but DH did not like any of them - as usual. He tends to wait until the last moment, as you know already.

Yasmina

[Catharine]

Greetings All!

Just checking in to see how everyone is doing?

I'm hanging in there. Went to my spin/cycle class this morning. I always feel so refreshed afterwards. I get more out ofthat class than walking around the block.

Rhonda- how are you doing? Thinking of you, lots of PMA.

Yasmina- has that DD or yours doing? Does she know she's to be a big sister soon?

I have caught our cat in the crib twice now. I don't know how she is getting into a room that the door is closed and latched. I have a few pings and pangs that i attribute to the wee one adjusting herself just right for entry into the world, but no real significant signs other than that. Occassionally I have what feels like AF cramps. I'm a bit nervous as to know if I do go into labor early because I do not have the appropriate pain sensing response. Everybody assures me I will know. Well, I walked on a foot with two shattered metatarsal bones for a week before I knew it. I walked on a spiral fractured leg for 3 days before I knew it was broken, who's to say that I'll just somehow miss out on the pain indicator to tell me that gosh it's time for peanuts arrival. 3.5 weeks and counting down. Still no workers to finish the construction project. Agony. Nesting instincts are kicking in full force. I want my house back in order and clean. Will it ever happen?

Thinking of all the wonderful lovely ladies here.
All the best,
Catharine

[mrscutter]

catharine,
Thanks for thinking of me. I am doing ok. Stressed out as usual. Just trying to come up with all the money for my IVF. I start the meds Oct 31st. I hope it works. I have got to learn to handle the stress. I know you are excited. You don't have long now. Get some rest and sleep while you can. You need lost of energy for that little miracle. I will be thinking about you. I will keep you posted.

[Catharine]

TGIF everyone

Rhonda-I know it is hard. Just the weight mentally is consuming. Remember you can vent it here, there are many ladies who still read the board but may not be posting at this time whom might chime in with Yasmina and myself to help support you. I can not recall are you doing acu or yoga or something similar to A) calm you and B) promote the blood flow/circulation within your reproductive organs? On my first ivf cycle I went and had a series of massages geared towards relaxing me during the tmt up to ET. I really enjoyed it, but then I'm a sucker for a good massage. Acu really does wonders for me and DH. The chinese doctor treated us both, as his philosophy is to treat the couple not just one of the pair. We both enjoy the tmt so much that DH goes in when he has problems now. Once DD is born I will go in for a visit just to show 'off' our little miracle. But my point is we were always so relaxed during the tmt and after; in fact, I'd go home and take a nap. I think I saw a post about extra meds earlier. I'm sorry I can not help. Does your clinic patient base have a program like this? I know when I was finished this last time I had several vials of one of the meds and I donated it to my clinics program. I was happy to help some couple like ourselves. It is truely helpfull in defraying some of the med costs associated with the tmt.

Yasmina-I should proof read my posts. I was trying to ask How is your DD doing? I must have mercury on the brain at the moment. I've been having a hard time focusing on my daily tasks for both home and work.

To everyone else out there-Happy Friday!

All the best,
Catharine

[children]

Hi Catharine,

I understood ur question about DD but just forgot to answer. She has always been a "mature" baby (I blame on my old eggs) and we are very blessed by that. Like every other toddler, she is also strong headed, little bossy and manipulative, but these are short-lived and easily controlled by distractions so far, we have not used timeout yet. She comes to our bed in the mornings after getting up (daddy takes her downstaires every morning) and still very gently touches my nipples and says "nai nai" - meaning "milk". But she has completely lost interest to breast feeding. I cannot wait and see how she will deal with her brother once she sees him to such milk out of "her" mom!

No, she cannot care less about her future brother. When I told her there is her brother inside by pointing to my belly, she says "le ventre" - meaning "belly", which tells me that she does not have a clue what's going on there. The funny thing is that she calls every little baby "gou gou" - meaning "dog". She sees many little babies at daycare and is very gentle and caring with them. Her teachers like to tell me that she will be a very good big sister. We will see about that and I will certainly report here once we find out.

Sorry to bore you all with long answers.

Currently, DH and I are enjoying lots of concerts and movies. Last night, we went for Latin Jazz and my little guy in the womb jumped everywhere and he continued to be quite excited which translated into my early labor dreams - I woke up in the middle of the night and thought that I was giving birth to him!

We are thinking about two ski trips before my due day (Feb. 2, 2009) to either Denver or Utah. I won't be skiing though, just to company him - skiing is our usual winter activity.

Work is fine and we at least can send two papers out by the end of the year. Writing the third one. If I can get all 3 published before my maternity leave, that would be good!

I am as anxious as you to welcome your DD to the world. You will be so happy to see this little miracle but I have to tell you though, you need a lot of sleep and food before her arrival...hope your house remodeling will be finished on time?


Hi Rhonda,

I hate to say the cruel fact that money is a big issue for many of us and I used to think this was the ONLY problem with ivfs. But after entering the ivf world, I found the stress from unknown, unpredictable and uncontrollable outcome is much harder to take than finance problem itself. That was why I said I went through a transformation process - Yoga helped me a great deal and coming to this message board is another way to keep our sanity. Yoga taught me to surrender, to let it go, to give your faith and hope to whichever force is out there...that what I call ultimate relaxed state of mind. I am not religious, but Yoga may have put my mind at easy and I feel very happy and relaxed every time I practiced (I did 30~45 min/time, 2~3x/wk).

I don't practice Yago regularly enough now, but I should get back on it though.

Good luck!


Hi to everyone else here and enjoy the coming weekend!

Yasmina

[Catharine]

Greetings ladies !

Just a quick pop in to see how everyone is doing?

Rhonda you must be close to starting tmt if you haven't already. Sending you lots of PMA for your journey.

Yasmina-how are you doing?

I'm doing well. PMA PMA. I had a doc appt today. Nothing new to report really. DD should be arriving shortly after 9am on Nov 4. Unless she surprises us with an early appearnce. This saturday we have my nephews wedding to attend. Should be good fun. I hope I don't get too tired. Everyday now I feel as if I get bigger and bigger. I've been attending the cycling classes twice a week. I don't over exert myself. I really just sit there and move my legs with minimal tension and occassionally I'll stand for the variety. I'm doing my best not to push my HR above 150. The temptation is there to push, but I've been a good girl and have had the will power to resist. It's nice jsut being in the class with my old friends, being apart of the gang again. The instructor has started to carry her phone into class incase I should go into labor. I have to admit I do think that is funny. I try to reassure her that I'll be fine and we are still early yet. And if I should go into labor the hospital is only 15min from the gym. My gym is part of the hospital network, so there are lots of physicians in my spin class. I'm not worried. I'm glad the instructor cares enough to be prepared though. When I get home from these classes I'm wiped out. I come home eat a healthy snack and then fall into slumberland. It's a good thing I don't push the exhertion thing. I always feel great afterwards, detoxed. I hope DD enjoys it. I believe she falls asleep during the class.

Wishing everyone all the best.
Catharine

[natashamom]

Hi Rhanda,

First I`m so sorry for the lost of your precious angel and know shes in heaven.

You`re not the oldest in here trust me!

I`m 46!!

We`re going for ivf in December with 2 embies donated to us from a 24y.o egg donor,so excited!!

Not sure when is yours but let me know,good luck to us all!

Natasha.

[natashamom]

Helllo Catharine,

I had a question reguarding the meds you order,where do you get over night and for free?!

Thanks,

Natasha.