Good morning ladies!
How nice it is to start the day chatting with you!
Let's get personal before I break the big news.
nimble,
Thank you so much for what you said; it relieved me a great deal to see that I didn't cause any misunderstanding. As for what I wrote being related to my Ph.D.... well, not quite, I think. I am very, very fortunate to interact with wonderful people who helped me a GREAT deal through my IVF treatments. I have evolved a great deal since then, and it's because they had me think some things, and rethink them again, and move forward constantly, learn from what happened, that I can speak like that today. In a word, I think it stems from personal growth. But again, like with every personal growth, it's
personal... and may not fit with everybody's views and it's perfectly understandable. Hence why I just wanted to share but not more. But I'm babbling, how are you doing??? I hope it's not too hot where you live... must be difficult to endure the very final stage of pregnancy during a heatwave!!!! Thinking of you sweetie, and waiting with you!
When is the party? I'm sure your cupcakes will be a huge hit!
Carolyn,
Work sounds busy; what do you do for a living dear? I'm from Montreal. From what I've read, you can apply for two types of fostering... type 1 involves children who have around 90% risk of being given up or permanently separated from their parents. Those adoption processes usually go faster, but some parents will hesitate a great deal because there's a risk that the child may return with its biological parents after a period of time, long or short. Type 2 applications target children whose parents legally gave up their rights. It's a permanent adoption right away. They say 6-8 years, but I've heard of parents who applied and received a baby 3 WEEKS later. Of course, it's an exception. I think it's all the administrative work that takes so long... the government's organization for children's protection have very strict rules, and they really want to make sure that the children can really no longer stay with their biological parents before they're put up for adoption. Then they have to really make sure that the adoptive parents are adequate... all this takes time, apparently. Plus, sadly, when you apply for caucasian children only, it takes longer... because there are more ethnic children waiting for adoption, even in Quebec (personally, I'm all for Angelina Jolie's concept for a rainbow family! She's not perfect, but I like that message she's sending!) The adoption is free, so I guess that, like all government-funded stuff, the long delays can be expected. It's a sharp contrast with, say, Columbia, where you can adopt in around 1 year, especially if you adopt siblings. And other countries have unbelievable criteria, like Haiti, where you have to be over 35 and married for 12 years or more! WOW.
And about "all things happen for a reason", I'm all for it. Sometimes, the big answer to the "why" is not what's most important, though... the mere fact you know and accept, deep down inside, that this obstacle was put on your path for a reason, and that you can learn from it, grow from it, can change your life for the better... sure works for me.
What trash did you watch??
Miracle,
Hi girl!
*HUG* How are you doing today? Hehehe by the way, in many cases, we study LONGER than psychiatrists do, LOL!
It's all a matter of morale... psychiatrists view psychological disorders as a medical disorder. To them, it only makes sense that only a doctor should make a medical diagnosis. That's why they guard the fortress so desperately. When in fact, studies show that it's the combination of medication and therapy that's the most effective in many disorders. Some psychiatrists will still refuse to view those disorders as psychological, and will keep seeing them as medical. so they'll treat them with meds. Question of perspective. It makes me SICK to my stomach when I see ads like Cymbalta, with the touching little music... depressed? Take drugs for 9 months and you'll be all better. Yeah, sure, you'll be. What will you learn? That when life hits you hard and you're unable to get back to your feet, you should take chemicals to make you better. What about some better learning? How about you start realizing how your life habits impact on you, how about you realize what thoughts, what irrational beliefs you have cause negative emotions repeteadly? How about I teach you how to deal with those thoughts so they're not as destructive to your well-being?
Wow, you've got me monologuing...
My ET will be on the 13th or the 14th... check my ticker! LOL
A week max now! Can't wait to see those little bundles of cells again... the little cuties...
hrobinson,
LOL don't feel horrible about the PMS stuff, it was SO FUNNY! We'll take it for a big typo, and not for a personal attack, okay?
I was appalled to read about your sister's story... I can't believe people can disrespect life that much, oh my... I, too, am pro-choice, but not 100% blind pro-choice. That your sister should choose abortion as a birth-control method is simply disgusting.... My only comfort is in the strong knowledge that what goes around comes around... and that every action causes an equal and opposite reaction... and that it will get right back at her one way or the other, either in this life or the next. Poor children... she locks them up? Where do you live; can you call a child's aid agency to report that inacceptable behavior? What she did at Xmas was simply horrible... you must have felt so betrayed!!! *HUGS* poor thing! Ah, it's like that good Alfred said in Dark Knight... "Some people just want to watch the world burn..." I hope she doesn't hurt you or get to you anymore? Do you still have to interact with her often? bwwwllll.... *shudders*
Let's switch to a happier subject.... Yep, I'm only 7 days from ET, maybe 6, we'll know next Wednesday. At my clinic, you don't really plan how many you'll put back. For now, the government has failed in passing a law that forbids women of a certain age (let's say, below 35) to transfer more than one embie or two. Our embies were frozen in two packs of 4 and one pack of 3 based on the survival rate at thawing at the time (it was 50% and was boosted to 75% with the new methods). In each pack, I have 1 or two borderline-fragmented embie. Surprise-surprise, last time, 3 embies survived, so at least one of them was borderline-fragmented and it didn't seem to bother it very much, lol! We have very strong embies. According to my doctor, the chances of having triplets when you transfer 3 are barely 3%. It does make my DH a little nervous, not much, but a little, because he wants us to stop at 2. I wouldn't mind having 3, though triplets is not the same thing obviously. Although his parents live in France (he's French), they are both retired and they would come spend a couple of months with us for sure at the beginning.
So long story short, usually, not all embies survive. So this time we'll thaw the pack of 4 that's left, leaving the 3-pack for another attempt (after this one works, of course, and we want to give our baby a sibling, lol!). If all embies survive, we'll see. If three or two survive, then we'll transfer them all. I would be EXTREMELY uneasy with the thought that one of our embies is left to die in a petrie dish after we thawed it. If only one survives, then they will thaw the other pack, and we'd transfer all survivors. So there you go! As for the time perception, well it's not too bad at all. Just taking my meds, taking it easy... it's my fourth attempt, so I'm really relaxed. I know it will be nice to have them back home, but I also know I won't know if I'm pregnant until the end of the month anyway. So that puts things in perspective.
As for the news, two things. Who watched "So you think you can dance?" yesterday evening? My my my!!! There were some amazing choreographies there!!!! Especially the last one!!! What a beginning! There were really awesome moments in it, and I usually don't really like contemporary.. but her choreographies are so special, and they express so much! And tonight, they'll have the Cirque du Soleil!!! YAY!
Can't help but be proud...
As for the BIG news, well... yesterday, my best friend of 15 years called me to catch up. After 15 months TCC, she finally opened up to me that it wasn't working. At first she thought she was the problem, because her cycles were extremely irregular and long, which suggested she didn't ovulate well, if at all. So when she talked to me, I strongly encouraged her to make an apt in a fertility clinic. She had an apt two weeks later, and two weeks after that, huge shock. She called me, she was in tears and completely distraught. She was fine, but her DH has very severe ogliospermy (sperm present, but completely motionless, and not a good count either). Genetic problem. It took them a long time to recover emotionally from that. They have told no one except me; they're still very ashamed by all this.
At first, it was the DH who struggled with the situation, she was more action-oriented. From the start, attempting a surgery on DH was not promising at all. Their only options were adoption, IVF with ICSI or donor sperm. They chose the latter; my friend absolutely refuses to have invasive interventions. However, when they started IUIs in May, she was the one who struggled the most with the process. She had been so used to thinking she was the problem, and all of a sudden she had to deal with the fact she would never have her DH's biological children, plus that she had to do fertility treatments thinking that there was no problem with her. It was a difficult switch to do. I'll spare you the details, but she became extremely distressed, most of the time keeping everything inside, sometimes talking to me for hours without being able to stop crying. It was not always easy for me to comfort her, especially when she started to compare our situations and suggested theirs was harder than ours. Grass always looks greener... Then, after her first 2ww, not a word. She decided to act as if nothing was happening because it made her feel better, and told me she didn't want to talk about it. She managed to convince herself that it would never work, to protect her feelings. I respected her wish, knowing that she did IUIs every month, and that after 3 BFNs her clinic would perform a hysteroscopy, which she feared a great deal.
But when she called yesterday, I had calculated that she could be around the time of the hysteroscopy... so of course I asked her how she felt about that. That's when she told me she was on day 18 post IUI and AF still hadn't started. I tried not to get too excited, but it took a while to convince her that doing an HPT was not a silly idea. She had done so many these past two years, and each time they were negative of course... with the IUIs, she would test on day 15 as instructed and some 10 minutes later, no joke, AF would start and she felt silly. So it took around 45 minutes to convince her to run to the drugstore and POAS.
She did... and she called me back, completely flabbergasted! "I don't believe it, I don't believe it! There's... there's a second line, there's a second line!!!" she said, breathless and shocked. She's pregnant!!!!!
Then of course she started to worry sick about all sorts of silly things, but it's in her nature. At least, with time, I finally convinced her that it was real. Can you believe it, yesterday was her third wedding anniversary, LOL! So I gave her the idea to wrap the HPT like a gift (she put it in a shoebox with other heavy stuff so her DH wouldn't suspect a thing) and give it to him as an anniversary gift. LOL, she wrapped it happily while on the phone with me, it was an incredible moment. And I felt EXTREMELY privileged to be the very first person with whom she shared it... I feel very strongly that it's a girl, so she'll finally have her little Emma!
Lol, the dates are so crazy, it's a sign. Her due date is on her sister's b-day. First heartbeat milestone? On MY birthday!!!! LOL The day she found out she was pregnant? Wedding anniversary! I'm having lunch with her today, and we'll spend the afternoon together. Can't wait to hear about how DH reacted.
And of course I'm giving you all these details just because I want to share... happy ending stories are always a comfort from time to time... and also because you do realize, as my friend and I do, that I might become preggers next week... which means I'd be due on May 2nd and she'd be due on April 12th. My DH was slightly concerned that it might put pressure on me to become pregnant, but not really. I just see it as an amazing possibility. Plus I have a strong feeling that it will work this time. I've been saying this since my miscarriage... I was able to become pregnant once, and now that I've been all cleaned up with my last surgery... having another BFP seems almost like a formality... and if it doesn't work this time, I still have one try at FET, and it would be right after... we'd still be only a few months apart, no big deal.
I'm really writing an epic novel, but it does me good to babble so much with you guys... sorry for the long post!
Have a great day ladies!
Sophie xxox
Gosh, tell work that you have to make more time for us!!! What are they thinking?? Yes I am doing fine. I try not to dwell on the bad stuff. Sometimes it is hard not too, but I really try to look at the positive!!! Well, I hope you have a lovely tea...(dinner?) have fun watching your trash!!! (that made me laugh!!!) I love trash too!!! 
I cant believe that they disrespect you like that. That is horrible. You put in the same amount of years as they did. The rule is just stupid. Thanks for your input on the insensitive people. When is your ET?? Your embies are waiting... 
