The Over 40 Crowd

[children]

Tammy,

Thanks and glad to have you back. I have been reading our old posts recently and was thinking about asking you how the adoption of Ellena from China going, are you still pursuing it? You sounded very busy with Andrew, work, and your pets, you have your hands full? Have you and DH decided what to do with your frozen eggs?

I had few moments of doubts as to whether we can handle two young kids at our age, but soon those doubts went away seeing how capable and patient my DH is with Eloise, she is absolutely daddy's girl. He is so happy with her and so much so he even wished that our second one was a girl! I, by default, wanted a boy. I also secretly wanted another girl but now I am ready for a totally different experience...


Catharine,

Have you and your GH decided which day is the best now to welcome your baby girl?

I forgot to mention that at Montreal's conference, we had a 5K fun run/walk, I only walked and among the walking crowd, I was the second one, but it took 49 min to finish! After that, my legs were sore for few days.

BTW, can you believe no one noticed that I was 5 month pregnant in the meeting, even for the ladies who are already mothers? When I told some of them, they were all SO surprised, which shocked me - I thought I was big!


Everyone else here,

Take care,

Yasmina

[Catharine]

Greetings All

So good to hear from you Tammy. Like Yasmina said, you sound like you have your hands full at the moment. What pets do you speak of? We have two dogs and a cat. I'm starting to worry about one of our dogs being around the baby, any advice?

Congratulations on the 5K Yasmina and surprising a few colleagues at the conference.

Next week [thursday] we get to pick the date. Once we have a date I'll post it. Although there are times I think she will pick her own date. I am absolutely huge at the moment, and getting bigger by the day. Peanut here has been doing some vigorous exercising, hence why I think she may pick her day. She hasn't dropped yet though so we have time. In the meantime, we are trying to get the house ready for her arrival. We're having an office finished above our garage [bonus room]. This project has been dragging on and on because of all my doctors appointments. Thankfully this project has given us an excuse to sift through our stuff that we were storing in the 'bonus room'. We are slowly throwing away stuff we no longer need nor require. Phew! what a relief to be getting rid of some clutter. Next we have to declutter the bedroom This will be difficult as DH has been clinging on to clothes he wore back in HS, over 25 years ago. It's time to say good-bye I say. To get to the bed, I have to climb over piles and piles of clothes. All the closets in the house are packed solid with clothes. Stuff he doesn't wear anymore but have so much sentimental value, aaauugghhhh! This weekend I'll be going through all the hand-me down items we've received from family and friends to see what we're missing. I'll make a run out to the store and fill the holes where we're missing necessary items for her arrival. Work is going well. I confess though I really am having a hard time focusing on work over preparing for DD. I just do not want to be caught off guard. The other issue we are having here in the ATL is gasoline shortages. So, we're having to keep a car full at all times for 'just in case'. No more unnecessary rides about town. The news says this situation could stretch into mid-October. So now I worry about having enough gas to get to the hospital in the event DD decides to make an early appearance. Crazy I know. I guess it is all this nesting instinct.

Wishing everyone all the best,
Catharine

[teachertam]

Hello Ladies:

Yasmina,

You must look great, as know one even noticed that you were pregnant.
I remember that I gained 35 lbs with Andrew. My mother-in-law was talking about how her Dr. would not let her gain any more than 25 lbs. Of course I did not tell her how much weight that I had gained.

We are still in line to adopt Elena. Right now the CCAA is referring babies to families with dossiers logged in February 2006 and we are June 9, 2006. It seems that we could get a referral in 1 year. My DH is not keen on having another child, as you know. He feels that we have our hands full with Andrew. Andrew is a ball of energy. He climbs onto everything and gets into everything. We will keep our dossier in line and when it gets closer to the referral time, we will make a firm decision. As I told my DH, once I see that baby's face, I will be unable to say no. He feels the same way. Regarding the eggs, we still have 4 frozen eggs.

Catharine,

We have 1 cat and two dogs (labs). They are great with Andrew, but I did not leave them alone with him when he was younger. You never know as they are still dogs. Andrew thinks he is one of the dogs now, as he just pushes them around if they get in his way. Our female lab, Katie, seemed very nervous about Andrew when we first brought him home from the hospital. We rescued her from a shelter and we think she was abused. She may have thought that we were replacing her. My DH was so in tune with her, that he let her sleep in our bed (between us) that first night. From that point on, she was fine and knew that we still loved her.
What breed of dogs do you have?

I know what you mean about your DH keeping clothing. Mine has more clothing than I do. He keeps everything. He found a jacket last year that he did not even know that he had. It looked like it had never been worn.

Hello to everyone else. I think Andrew is stirring from his nap. Little guy has been fighting the bed lately. He has slept 3 hours today!



Regards,
Tammy

[jen babes]

Hi all

just ketting you know i am still lurking now and again checking up on you all.

catharine good luck with the impending delivery. Whatever peanut decideds... to come herself or induced much love and hugs x x x


yasmina congrats on your growing little boy bump. Hoe lovely to have one of each x x x

tammy- good luck with the adoption. I am sure Andrew will love his sister once he is used to her xxx

Chriss are you still around ??? much love sweetie hope your on the path still and if trying DE good luck x x x

hello newbies and good luck with tmt x x x

Hi to everyone i have missed x x x much love x x x

I am slowly coming to terms about being without kids. i cannot adopt as i have an autoimmune disease so DE was my only hope. Still think of trying again...but health wise i have been struggling a lot. So DH and i are having time out for a year so i can try new drugs. Although he feels that actually we should NOT try again as it took all my reserves to get through each cycle. Understand this as he has to pick up the pieces ... SO just gotta wait and see what life brings x x x

will keep lurking and seeing how you are all doing x x

much love to you all
jen
xxxxxxxxx

[children]

Hi all, happy Friday again!

Hi Jen and Tammy,

I am so glad to have you both back again! I know many of us are lurking, but to take time to type is another issue. Most of the times, I also don't know what to say since not much changed to too much has changed and don't know where to start...

Tammy,

Thanks for your update and I can understand your DH's feeling. Andrew is at the most energetic stage and I am sure he gets himself in all kinds of trouble. As you said, once you will see the baby's picture, it will be hard to say no too. And hopefully by the time you will get Elena, Andrew will be a big helper then!

Jen,

Thanks for hanging about and your update also. I did not know that you have an autoimmune disease. But I know of someone who has it, which made her quit her regular job as a physician and stay home most of the times now. On the top of that, her husband had bike accident which put him in wheelchair for the rest of his life, but he works full time as an assistant professor in a university in the US. This situation did not affect their adoption plan. They adopted a girl 2 years ago and they are in the process of adopting another. I wish you could do the same. It's a shame that you cannot expand your family through adoption. I hate to see you going through each ivf cycle with all your reserve.

Wish you and your DH reach a complete peace with your decision. Once we refocus on what life can offer, we will see the light, we will enjoy life to its fullness. My DH belongs to one of these people who can live happily with or without any kids. He even thinks that my insisting to trying to have our own kids is selfish. I learned to see things from different perspectives from him. I believe that we won't be this lucky to almost have two successful ivf children without the understanding of "having our own kids is not the ultimate goal of life".

Catharine,

How does Oct 16, Thursday, 2008 sound? I am Chinese, I like even numbers.

I feel the baby kicks quite often also! Have fun to throw away things. We moved few times and threw away quite a bit of stuff over the years. But we are now still thinking about getting rid of more stuff, like our old sofa bed, so that we can have two baby rooms.

Everyone else here, enjoy the coming weekend!

Yasmina

[mrscutter]

Hi ladies,
Im new to this board. Trying to figure out how this works. is this the 40 and over board? Sorry if I posted here before. trying to get some info and help from you ladies.

[Catharine]

Greetings!

Welcome Mrscutter. Yes this is the over 40 group. Please do not be shy. I'm confident one of the ladies here can answer and questions you may have. In the very least they can help direct you to some resources.

Hi Jen- I often think of you and hope all is well. I was saddened to read your latest post. I so wish for you have your dream of being a mum. A big hug to you and your DH. I pray for the best for you two and for your health.

Hey Yasmina-October 16 sounds wonderful it has it's roots in 2. 2 is my favorite number. But alas, my nephew is marrying on the 18th so, having her that early might not be good. Sadly we're missing a really close friends wedding in florida Nov 1 for the obvious reasons. Speaking of baby kicks, sometimes I feel I have a little alien inside. Watching the belly poke out and dimple in, waves of movement its incredible.

Hey Tammy-we have a jack russel [10y], an australian shepherd [1.5y] and a kitty [12y]. The aussie is going to be our issue, he's spunky [full of boundless energy]. I need to order some pet gates to contain the pups. The trick will be finding tall enough ones that he doesn't think he's in an agility trial
Wishing you all the best as you and DH wait for Elena.

So, I was able to make it to the gym last week; I hadn't been since last February, tmt and all. I attended a spin-cycle class. I had such a blast. I also shocked many of my fitness buddies with my very protruding belly. I'm hoping to go again this week. Don't worry ladies, the protruding belly prevents me from doing much of the activities given by the instructors; I jsut sit with minimal resistance and spin. It was really nice to have human contact. I spend most of my days now infront of my home computer working. This past weekend we attended my DH's 25 class renunion from HS. We had a blast. Although he was not really up for going, in the long run he enjoyed chatting with some old friends he hadn't seen since the last class reunion. He also enjoyed the fact that he had a built in designated driver, not that he got out of hand; he just didn't have to worry he knew I'd take care of him in case he had and that he would get home safe. And for those wondering, yes I was the only preggers one there and yes I was a topic of discussion. It was kind of comically really.

Anyways everyone take care. Sending out lots of positive vibes to everyone. Enjoy the week. I'll let ya know the birthdate as soon as we schedule it.

Cheers!
Catharine

[children]

Hi Mrscutter,

Welcome. The most naive view of ivf that I found for me is that I though once I agree to put in the money and go through the procedure once, that was all I needed. In fact, this did happen for some lucky women, but for most of others, it is a relatively long and unpredictable process. It takes a lot out of you to get it done properly. For me, I believe I had a transformation from a regular woman to a philosopher. The bottom line is that the outcome of each ivf cycle is not predictable, you kind of have to surrender...

The good news is that you are very YOUNG among us and I think you have very good chance to get what you want. Let us know how your first cycle goes.

BTW, don't be discouraged if you have not seen many of our 40 crowd to post here. If you don't mind, you can go back to read this board from the very beginning - I did that and this also helped me a lot to understand ivf process since most of the knowledge that you need, you can find within this board from everyone's posts.

Catharine,

3 more days to go until you decide when you DD will come to the world. Can you choose to let her decide? For example, elect the day that your first contraction starts? That is my choice for now. Once your regular contractions start, your Ob will still have plenty time to prepare for a C-section anyway. Just a thought if you prefer to wait as long as possible. You sounded like you are really enjoying your pg a lot, I should learn from you to enjoy this pg more. I try to hold off the medication for the heartburn since I can still sleep for now.

Everyone else here, enjoy your week!

[Catharine]

Hi Everyone-

Yasmina-Thank you for the kind words, I think I've had a realitively uncomplicated pg. I had the unusual benign tumor growth in my nose but other than that so far I've been blessed to have missed many of the discomforts of begin pg and this has allowed for some small enjoyments. Although yesterday my feet swelled for the first time. The weight of DD can be unbearable at times, as she has dropped and slowly moving into the pelvic area. This is another reason I believe she may make an early entrance.

Has your ms subsided any further? I still have a few food aversions that I don't realize till I'm sitting in front of the dish and suddenly I just can not eat the food. Funny thing is that it isn't consistant. So, I just tell DH to fix whatever he wants and I'll try to eat as much as I can. However, lately I've been famished. I want to eat so much all the time. At the moment the pantry is empty making that difficult to do. I'll be going grocery shopping this afternoon for sure. Many of my friends had/have acid reflux, acid stomache, or indigestion and they all swear by taking I think priolosec.

The project in the house is dragging and what's worse several things we specifically asked to be done were ignored and this has upset me greatly. It is time to fire the contractor and just finish the room ourselves [DIY]. My position on the topic does not please DH, but then he's not dealing with the incompetent fools that I have been. I get the feeling that the owrkers see 'sucker' written across my head glowing like a neon sign. I can not tolerate this lack of respect. When I ask something to be done a certain way and they say yes, then I think it's reasonable to expect that it will be done that way. Alas, these fellas think they know me and want to do it there way and think I will be for eternally greatful for their workmanship. As you can tell, the opposite is true. It's just a nightmare.

Enough about me, I hope everyone is doing well.

Take Care,
Catharine

[mrscutter]

Hey ladies,
Boy do I need you guys today. I just feel so defeated. My insurance doens't pay anything for any fertility treaments. We have been on the phone all day trying to come up with all of this money. I just feel like crying. I had no idea how expensive IVF is. I talked with the pharmancy today and they are quoting me a price of over 8000 dollars just for the meds. I was numb and in shock. I just sat there in silance. I cannot believe they can acutally charge that much money just for meds. Not to mention the cost of the actual IVF. I really needed to talk to you guys today because I know you understand what I am feeling. Then what if I take out these loans and the ivf is a bfn. How awful this will be. This is my only shot. I will not have the money to try again. Sorry this is so long, I just needed to get it off my chest. Thanks alot.

[children]

Hi Catharine,

I am feeling your nesting instinct! Remodeling a house is never easy and on schedule but I am sure you will get it done on time. Last time, we recoated our pine wood floor and tore down the whole master bed room walls and my DH had single handedly finished all the jobs before Eloise was born though, I was really tensed at some point since everyday I went home, it was a mess and my belly got bigger each day but the baby room was not ready... However, in the end, I was totally impressed by how my DH turned a 75 yrs broken house to a livable condition! I hear you about the lack of professionalisms of those contractors. We recently got a new roof which cost $7000 which estimated as $6000, then it leaked the very NEXT day when it was done! They did not refund a penny but came to fix it right away. I was mad!

I used prilosec and tums last pg also and I think I am needing these now. My MS definitely subsided quite a bit, still no milk though - eat a lot of cheese instead.

Take care, Yasmina

[Catharine]

Greetings All

Mrscutter-My heart goes out to you. I'm not certain if you are in the US. I will assume you are. Did you call Schraft's specialty pharmacy or percisionRx. They may have better prices since they deal in high volume infertility meds. Also, you can finance the tmt see http://www.integramed.com/inmdweb/conte ... rtners.jsp
Remember also that you can itemize your medical expenses on your tax return. Check with your state's department of insurance and see if they have any information on infertility coverage. Some states legislate that insurance companies doing business in their state must provide some coverage. If not then see if there is a petition to be signed and write your congress people. It is approaching open enrollment for many insurance plans is this true for you and if so is there a better insurance plan available that would cover the meds or the tmt or both? I know it would go into effect Jan 01, '09; it's just a thought.

Yasmina-Can we borrow your DH ? I wish mine was handy, sadly I'm the one that is handy, but not lately with the ever expanding waist line. Slowly the baby's room comes together I hung the roman shade and will hang the curtains and valance soon. DH has a hard time handling power tools. Any home repairs that are not too cumbersome are left up to me to handle. This includes car maintenance and repairs. If I wasn't in my present condition, pg, I could finish the trim work as well as paint, then have someone install the carpet. The room we're finishing is to be our office. The baby room was our office. Thankfully, she will be in our bedroom to begin with. I just do not want strangers in my house in the event I have a newborn to take care while at the same time having to watch over their work. I'm thinking that's not going to work out so well.

Hello to everyone else reading our posts.
Wishing everyone well.

Catharine

[mrscutter]

Thanks catharine so much for your kind words and advice. Unfortunately my state is not one that mandates insurance company to pay benefits. I live in South Carolina. I will just keep trying to make it work.

Rhonda

[Catharine]

Mrscutter-we're practically neighbors, I'm in Georgia and like South Carolina, it too does not mandate coverage. Keep your chin up, positive thinking. Where there is a will there is a way.

All the best,
Catharine

[children]

Mrscutter/Rhonda and Catharine,

Me too, not far from both of you. I had nothing covered by insurance and I did not even bother to try to call anyone knowing all the insurance companies hire people just to make sure not to pay for any of your expenses!

Anyways, I used a local pharmacy at San Antonio for my fresh cycle. After moving to Nashville, I was recommended by new clinic to use IVPcare.com (online), which is cheaper than most of the pharmacies that I used. I also used a local Pharmacy for some less costly hormones, such as E2 and progesterones, whenever I needed them the same day.

Rhonda,

I am so sorry for your situation. As many of us know that ivfs rarely work the very first time, I wonder whether you could talk to your clinic for a Shared-Risk Program. I had this one which allowed me go through 3 cycles for a price of a little more than one (I believe that I paid a total of $15,000 for all 3 cycles, 1 fresh ($9000) and 3 frozen ($2000/ea.) For medications, the fresh cycle cost less than $4000, which depends on how good of a responder you are, I responded to the drugs well so they had to decrease the doses along the way, which saved money. Especially for the Gonad-f multi-dose pen (pure FSH), it cost $900/pen at that time. I remember in the end, I was one dose short but I did not want to buy another multi-dose pen so I skipped it!

The other plan they offer is Refund Plan (I believe it cost $24,000 to enroll), this plan offers money-back if the included cycles within the enrollment terms (18 months?) fails to produce a baby. But I was over 43 at that time, not qualified for this one.

There is also finance aid from Capital One credit company, they offer lower rate for ivf patients.

We weighted many options and thought about adoption cost would be similar to ivf (if not more) so we decided to try ivf first. After having a live baby, we forgot all the cost, no money can buy the happiness that a baby brings you!

Catharine,

Believe or not, I was quite handy also before marrying to DH, except that I don't repair cars! After marriage, I could not even drive a car well anymore. DH turned me into a cook! Now, he has his basement to spend his weekends in making doors, windows, and etc. He made a sandbox and a swing for DD. His next projects are remodeling both well-functioned bathrooms - he said they are not shinny enough!) and then the kitchen, which was remodeled two years ago by previous owner - he said it was cheaply done, he needs to do it right with better countertops, sinks and appliances! A House is this man's toy and a money sink, I am telling you. You don't want to borrow him, as he does thing for fun, not for necessity!

Ok, I'd better get some work done here, talk to you all later!

Yasmina