Cleansing anyone?

I should be starting a herbal body-cleansing program within a few days. I’m now just waiting for the packet to arrive! I looked at many different products but decided to give the one from DrNatura a try!

I have being wanting to do a body cleansing (detoxification) for a long time now and today I decided it was the day to buy the program. So I placed the order! Today was the day because I have been feeling so completely drained of energy lately, that I can’t imagine getting pregnant with the level of energy I’m experiencing, I don’t think I should try to get pregnant feeling so awful like I have been lately and the cleansing is supposed to help to increase energy levels. So we shall see if it will help or not.

I also have been finding more and more information everyday on the importance of cleansing your body if you are trying to get pregnant. “Cleansing is an important part of preparing for pregnancy. All the toxins that you ingest, drink, breathe in, and absorb through your skin end up in your liver and gastrointestinal (GI) tract. If they are not expelled from your colon and liver as quickly as possibly, they can wreak havoc on your reproductive and other systems.” (puristat.com).
So I decided that I have more to gain than lose by trying this before my next FET in September! If this does help me improve my general well being, it may help me to deal with all the emotional and physical strain that a fertility treatment cycle brings to ones life.

The herbs from the product are designed to remove dangerous chemicals like mercury and lead from the body’s organs and bloodstream, as well as parasites, by cleansing the GI and hopefully leading to better health. I just hope I don’t see any parasites after using the bathroom. That would definitely freak me out!

I will be doing it for two months and I should be done a couple weeks before my FET starts in September!
I’m planning to post about my cleansing experience here!

June 26th, 2008 - Posted in All Things Fertility!, Help Yourself! | | Comments Off

Am I being too sensitive?

I read an article on babble today by Keri Fisher that really left an impression on me. I had to read it, the title definitely caught my attention: “The Not-So-Happy Accident - I wish I wasn’t pregnant.”

I really felt like cursing when I was reading her story! But what else should I expect, she posted her story at the “Bad Parent” column. So at least she doesn’t try to deny it, and I give her some credit for that!

In my opinion anyone has the right to plan their family and stop having kids when they see fit, but if they find themselves with an unplanned pregnancy, just make sure to have your tubes tied during that baby’s delivery or even better get your husband to have a vasectomy. But to say that you don’t want that unplanned baby just because you thought you were done having kids and according to her, her new pregnancy would delay her “freedom,” it quite amazed me and probably tells a lot about her character.

Here is what she sad: “It seemed silly and shortsighted to think about how close I had been to being done with babies. This summer my boys were going to be in camp full time. I had been looking forward to my freedom. With every milestone Ronan crossed, I had felt excited rather than sad. No more nursing? Hooray! Done with the high chair? Good riddance! Sayonara crib! See you later sippy cup!”

Oh for goodness sake, her other two kids are 3 and 2 years old (it is posted on her website), so go figure what freedom she will be delaying at this point in her life by having another child!!! It is to me quite shocking that someone would reject a child on those grounds…. Huh! Full time summer camp for 3 year old and 2 year old toddlers? Really!!! I didn’t even know this was an option!

It is not that she was someone at a difficult place in her life when she found out that she was pregnant again. According to her she had no reason to not keep her baby with the exception that she didn’t want it…. “I was married, two wonderful sons, fairly young and fairly stable. I had no reason not to keep this baby. Except, of course, that I didn’t want it.”
Can she be any more selfish? Probably not! Her new baby will take too much of her time, and she will not be able to keep up with the news from the tabloids that she reads! What a pity!!!

She definitely made me sick, especially when I think how hard it is for so many women to get anywhere near where she has.

June 21st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 1 Comments

They make me scream!

We had an unexpected encounter of the scary kind in our back yard today: a “SNAKE”!!!
Big one too, over 40 inches long I think! Oh my… oh my….

Dear Mister snake, what are you doing in here? Of course Jeff had to get the camera and try to take a few pictures. I was terrified and of course AJ was very excited. So much so that she spent the rest of the day talking about it and drawing pictures of the snake.

I don’t know anything about snakes, the only thing I know is that they make me scream!!! So after we downloaded the pictures on the computer we started searching for “Florida’s Snakes” to try to find out what kind she was. At this moment we suspect that she is a harmless brown water snake but we are not 100% sure yet!

Because of my daughter and our pets, it is a scary thought to have something venomous inhabiting our backyard. So I’m really hoping she is just scary but not any kind of a danger or that she has by now moved on!

We will try to find out more about her tomorrow and see if we need to be concerned, and if so find someone to come here to rescue her from us!

June 20th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

How do we keep on going?

It is very painful after a long and harsh battle with infertility to finally be blessed with a pregnancy and have it taken away from you.

I have been trying to write something helpful to a wonderful woman I know who has just found out that the baby she was expecting no longer has a heartbeat, but I have so far failed. And the truth is there is not a lot that can be said to help her overcome this painful moment in her life. Time to heal is what will overcome the pain. So the only thing I was able to say to her is that I was “sorry” and that “time will make it easier.” But will it really? I hope so.
If we lived near each other I would offer my company and my help in any way she could possibly need me, but unfortunately we have the Atlantic Ocean between us.

I know she will eventually be fine and she will also be a mommy some day…. she will be a great mommy as a matter of fact. One of the things infertility does to people is it makes them strong and resilient. It teaches us to be more patient, compassionate, and selfless; and these are themselves great traits to have when parenting.

But how can we keep on going and hoping after so much of the disappointment that infertility throws at us? It is nothing less than exhausting to keep falling down and having to find the strength to keep getting up to try it again. But then again what other options do we have?
With infertility we have two roads on which we can travel. We can give up trying and move on to adoption or accept life without children and make peace with our infertility, or we can keep on trying.

Could I ever be able to just give up trying? Could you? I know in my heart that giving up is not the road I will ever choose to take. We spent ten long years to conceive our daughter and when she was born the desire to have another child came to me almost immediately. We have been trying for a second child for more than five years now. One thing I will always have is hope and I will always know that no matter what, I have always tried to give my all and keep trying to follow my heart’s strong desire to have children.

But “why” do heartbreaking experiences such as a miscarriage happen to people? I don’t know, I don’t know why life is filled with so many disappointing moments and I no longer try to answer those questions. I’m not wise enough I suppose, to try to rationalize the reasons for why things get really bad sometimes. I have learned to accept (some days it works better then others) that things have a tendency to fall into place eventually. Events in life, good and bad, are just part of a big puzzle and in the end all the pieces fit together and we see the whole picture.

We just have to try to keep our chin up the best we can and hope that we don’t fall apart completely before the puzzle is finished.

June 19th, 2008 - Posted in All Things Fertility! | | Comments Off

The first pregnant man? Really?

Oprah, Good Morning America and now he has made it to the international news spotlight, and still I just recently learned about the “first pregnant man.” Of course I had to do a little research on him with Google! I know I’m a little slow on catching up with the news from Oprah… I guess I have been more preoccupied with the election and bad weather for the past few months!

But as soon as I learned about the “first pregnant man” I was so excited that I had to find out more about him, especially how they got him pregnant. I thought if science is now able to get a man pregnant that is great news for many of us infertiles out there. If they can get men pregnant it should not be long for them to be able to help all the infertile women to conceive a baby. Right, right!

Also I had to think that my husband maybe could carry our next child! But would he be able to enjoy the miracle and not complain too much about all the discomfort of pregnancy? Thinking better, I don’t think he would be able to handle it! And I definitely don’t think I could handle the nagging! What do you think? Do you think a man would be able to go through a pregnancy?

So I was a little disappointed when I found out that the “first pregnant man” is still biologically a woman. Bummer!

It is wonderful that this couple decided to have their own child and did what they could to achieve their dreams, but should this be that big of a deal? If he was biologically male and pregnant that should definitely deserve the headlines but the truth is he’s still biologically a woman and I don’t understand what all the fuss is about.

If you also don’t watch Oprah or Good Morning America (like me) and have no idea who I’m taking about, I’m talking about Thomas Beatie a man who was born a woman and is now expecting a baby. He was able to conceive and carry the baby because he still has “his” female reproductive organs.

So no “first pregnant man” as of yet!

June 12th, 2008 - Posted in All Things Fertility! | | Comments Off

Can I do it?

I want to lose some weight and start exercising before my next fertility treatment in September. I would like to lose 20 lbs but anything at this point would be a gain, or should I say a loss?

The thing is I don’t seem to be able to get motivated enough to get myself going! My favorite thing to do is walk, but it has been so hot here in Florida…. We have completely skipped spring this year. We went from winter straight into summer and that is a big shame to me, spring is my favorite season. But this spring has been so hot, uncomfortable, and lets not forget there is a daily threat of nagging storms.

One thing about living in Florida is that it never does just rain. We never get a nice calming, soothing rain. No, no, no, don’t even hope for it because you will never see it. We just get freaking scary storms and when is hot like it has been, storms pop up from nowhere unexpectedly at any time. So going for walks is not what I want to be doing!

For Christmas I got an exercise bike but have just used it a few times. Exercise equipment and exercise DVDs, I find them to be boring so it is hard to get motivated so they are at the moment helping to clutter my house.

I don’t really like to go to the gym so I will not consider it as an option. I know, I know it is sounding really a lot like excuses, isn’t it? (No Kidding!). I think I’m a lost cause, don’t you? Well I’m not ready to give up yet, so I’m still looking for something that could possibly work for me. Yesterday I found a product that could possibly be the one and I’m considering buying it. Have you heard about Wii Fit before? It is some kind of interactive game. It is looking promising so I will do some more research on it.

June 11th, 2008 - Posted in All Things Fertility!, Help Yourself! | | Comments Off

What is that all about?

I don’t really know what to make of this video that I found on YouTube by “Snowflakes.” It is just so unfair in so many ways for them to be passing judgment on people and say that they are educating people on the option of embryo donation. I don’t I like what I see…. Do you?

During all of our IVF cycles using my own eggs we were never lucky enough to have any embryos left to freeze. The only time we had any embryos left was from this last cycle, because we used donated eggs. Now we have two frozen embryos left waiting for me in the Czech Republic. But the thing is, anyone who goes through IVF hopes to have some embryos left to freeze. IVF treatment is so expensive and embryos left would allow the hopeful parents to have another try in case the cycle didn’t work, or maybe to try to have another child in the future. I never had any embryos left until now, because I never produced a lot of eggs to start with.

But my question is: What is Snowflakes trying to do with this video? Are they trying to play the guilt card with people who went through so much already to have their families, and who now have embryos in storage? Are they hoping that all people with embryos in storage will end up donating them to another couple? Implying that those are babies inside liquid nitrogen that are feeling cold, scared and dreaming about loving parents… it is not, in my opinion, a good way to convince anyone to donate their embryos.
Could they just try to educate people who have embryos in storage about embryo donation as an option that they have for their embryos without trying to make them feel bad about the circumstances they find themselves in?

Please keep in mind that not all fertilized eggs become embryos and not all embryos will ever become babies. As a matter of fact just a few embryos will ever become babies. If all embryos created during an IVF cycle would become babies, I would have about 30 kids by now. But I don’t, and from all those embryos we helped to create only one made it into a baby…. my wonderful daughter AJ!

June 8th, 2008 - Posted in All Things Fertility! | | Comments Off

And then they were gone!

Oh my!
I still remember how anxious I was waiting for AJ to get her first baby tooth!!!!
She took her time just like she has done with everything else in her life so far (in a good way)… She was almost one year old when her first baby tooth came out and now at six she has being keeping the Tooth Fairy busy! She just lost her second top front tooth and as a proud mommy I wanted to share this cute picture!

I just showed her this picture and she said “WHAT!

June 5th, 2008 - Posted in Mommy Stuff! | | Comments Off

Old news but still….

I just found this announcement on the internet and I thought it was worth sharing:

“Baskin-Robbins is introducing Soft Serve!

To help welcome this new addition and to pay tribute to all mommies-to-be, Baskin-Robbins is turning Wednesday, May 21 from “hump day” into “Bump Day,” by offering a FREE cone of Soft Serve to all expectant mothers across the nation!

Baskin-Robbins Bump Day will take place on Wednesday, May 21 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at participating store locations in California; Chicago; New York; El Paso, Texas; and Nashville, Tenn.

During Bump Day, expectant mothers will be treated to one free 3 oz. cup or cone of soft Serve. For more information about Bump Day or to find a participating store, please visit http://www.baskinrobbins.com/bumpday.”

Could someone somewhere and for once do something nice for fertility-challenged people…. I do think ice cream could be a very sweet start. Maybe we should contact Baskin-Robbins and tell them they are discriminating and that we demand an ice cream day for infertile people too. Do you think they will go for it? How would we show them we are infertile for free ice cream? I know, I know silly me!

June 1st, 2008 - Posted in All Things Fertility! | | Comments Off