35w2d CTG monitoring for suspected placental failure

Yes yes I know, there has been a major gap in my posting on here. Sorry to have worried anyone! I appreciate those of you who have given me a poke with the comment stick hehe. Basically all is fine. But third trimester exhaustion hit me and I've been dealing with insulin resistance (blood sugars kept creeping upwards). Every evening I thought of posting I would fall asleep!

Here are some pictures of what happened yesterday:

Hi Interwebs! Check out my belly!

Oh it hasn't been all napping and falling asleep in the armchair around here. Or struggling to make it through the last several weeks of work (only 5 working days left, folks!!!) Oh no! In fact yesterday things got all interesting again as I found myself back up in Labour and Delivery having the baby's heart rate checked out, to check for placental failure. Fun times. Don't let that smile fool you.

From about 24 weeks onwards I started to get insulin resistance meaning that my blood sugars would be slightly higher each day, and a dose of insulin which worked one day, would no longer be enough. The treatment is not difficult, but it takes a huge amount of observation and dedication and trial and error to get right. Especially since it has to be done at least once a week, more likely every 3 days or so: adjusting insulin basal rates up, making insulin:carb ratios stronger, and giving more corrections throughout the day (and night) when those two prior things weren't doing the trick.

Cut to Friday, my 6th to last day at work, and I was feeling like crap. Had an awful night with barely any sleep due to almost constant low blood glucose alarms going off. I must have drunk nearly 750ml of juice throughout the night! Plus now that I'm so huge, reflux/heartburn and belly/back aches have made my nights a bit of a living hell. If I could get away with just staying awake for the rest of this pregnancy, I think I'd take it as lying down can be most uncomfortable if I'm overtired.

I checked back over my blood glucose logs and noticed that my blood sugars had been dropping more and more from Wednesday through to Friday. This set off some mild alarm bells. It could be that because I was mid-34w that my insulin resistance was starting to wane, and that would be, from what I read, somewhat normal for the increases in blood glucose to plateau out a bit. But this was a drop. I was running -30% temp basals and still getting lows. I was drinking juice by the glass and needing more in half and hour. Not normal. Plus I felt like arse. So tired, so achy, got cankles. Boo.

After scouring the interwebs on Friday night and getting help from some lovely FB ppl, I decided to give things one more night and see if they would fix themselves. Nope. So Saturday morning I messaged my Diabetes Nurse Educator who promptly phoned my OB and they both wanted me in immediately for CTG monitoring just to check for placental failure (where the placenta has started to degrade and so the baby isn't getting the blood supply it needs). I once again felt like a silly fool traipsing up the road to the hospital when by all outward appearances I was well and good. But there are no maternal symptoms of placental failure so for once I was actually quite thankful to have diabetes - my blood sugar drop being a potential early warning sign! Yay for the silver lining! :)

A lovely little British nurse got me setup on the monitor at about 11.30am, and since I had told Hubby there was no real need for him to come and sit and be bored with me in hospital, I was left alone with the wonderful sound of Tiny Fish's heartbeat.

30 mins later she came back to check on me, and kinda hummed and hawed at the graph. She said that the heart rate was good, but there wasn't really much variability. It showed one "tightening" of the uterus, but didn't capture any braxton hicks contractions in the entire time I was there. She decided to leave the monitors on for another 30 mins. I rolled to my left side at her suggestion to try and wake Tiny Fish up, even though I thought baby was already awake with some gentle movement happening. This helped to increase the variability of the heart rate which was what the midwife was looking for. She said that normally this would be a perfectly acceptable graph, but with my diabetes and the low blood she wanted to see a "perfect" graph before letting me go.

It was really nice, one of the first things she said when she came in was "I've read your notes" (Wow!!!) and I see you are Type 1, I don't know much about Type 1 as most women we get through here are Type 2 or gestational. Tell me about it" Just, wow!!! That's so awesome to have a healthcare professional being so open and friendly, and genuinely wanting to know all about Type 1 and how I manage it. She was fascinated by the CGM, and kept asking me interesting and intelligent questions about how I deal with different aspects of my diabetes. She even wanted to check with me who she should call if there was a problem with the heart rate! (It was awesome that my OB was scheduled on shift that morning. I didn't get to see him, but I believe she checked the graph with him).

At one point I was on my own again, and I noticed that Tiny Fish's heart rate that had been sitting at about 144 - 146bpm was suddenly going 140, 139, 138, 137... I felt fine, but I checked my Dexcom graph and saw that I was indeed slipping ever so slowly low:

I had been in hospital for an hour and a quarter, right across lunchtime, and had no food. Lucky I packed a banana, muesli bar, mandarin, juice... My blood glucose meter was, as normal, slacking and only showed 5.5mmol (a no-drama number), and no alarms had gone off on the dex. So I decided to see what would happen for a minute. Not long, but it intrigued me greatly that the baby's heart rate would start dropping noticeably before I felt symptoms or got low alarms. Shortly after that, the midwife came back in and by that stage I felt it necessary to eat the banana. She too was interested, and of course insisted that I stay a further 30 mins. Gah. She also threatened me with a hospital lunch but I said no thanks I have plenty!

Another goodly wait and Tiny Fish got the hiccups. The were strong enough to be seen moving my belly, and through the CTG monitor they were very loud! They were so strong the monitor kept slipping to the point that I couldn't keep it lined up with my hand, and the CTG alarm started going loudly. So that, plus loud hiccups, plus dexcom alarms, plus my phone buzzing with incoming text messages (hey, I was bored!) and soon another midwife came quickly in to sort me out. She looked at the graph and decided it was pretty good. My midwife came back in and ripped off the paper print out and took it out to get checked, and then I was released!

I packed up and got all the jelly wiped off my belly. Walking back up the corridor I started bumping into folks from my antenatal class, another and another. What was going on? Oh riiiiiiight, this was the antenatal class tour of the labour ward! lol. I was starving (hey, a banana and muesli bar is NOT enough at this stage ok) and hubby was on his way to pick me up so I decided to flag the tour. But they were all like "oh is this where we meet?" "um, yeah, I've just been in here for monitoring, I'm not staying for the tour" "Oh! Are you ok???!" "Yep, got the all clear".

So it was the result I expected, no problems, and next scan is on Thursday. But since we live so close to the hospital it is worth getting checked out anytime I see something unusual. This week is my last week of work with handovers to all the new tutors (5 replacements!) and I have 4 official medical appointments, with a recommendation from the midwife to go for another CTG monitoring session after the scan on Thursday. Current thinking is that I will talk to my boss about working shorter hours this week as the exhaustion is just getting too much for me. Hopefully I can just work mornings??? We will see :)

Thanks for reading :)

11w3d Christmas Eve-Eve

Christmas shopping is all finished (hooray) and this evening I put up the tree and then we wrapped all the pressies. Including the first thing ever for our one on the way:



Here is the tree, with massively oversized tinsel star that keeps threatening to tip the whole lot over:



Pregnancy symptoms at 11 weeks seem to be settling down a bit. Over the past 3 or 4 days I've gotten a lot of my energy back. A week ago I set the record at 3 naps in one day, not including the 11.30am sleep in. Then I got a horrendous head cold that featured loud sneezing with nose like a tap.

I have given my cold to Hubby and his Mum, and now I'm feeling better lol :P

Breathing is feeling a bit weird at times, kind of like the feeling you get when the cat is sleeping on your chest.

I've upped my breakfast to be one slice of gluten-free toast with lashings if crunchy peanut butter, a cup of decaf-tea with raw sugar and trim milk, a handful of prunes and a nectarine or a couple of fresh apricots.

I still haven't gained any weight (57kg) but I have reorganized what I've got: arms and face seem a bit skinnier while belly may? Seem? Rounder? we are taking photos but even though I'm frustrated at being stick with hardly any pant to wear and still being a long way away from maternity clothing, there is no obvious "popping" yet.

Getting a lot of lows at the moment, and they generally seem to take double the amount of carbs to get me back to fighting fit. So two juice boxes instead of one. I got so frustrated with juice that I've started eating glucose tablets again :-/

Getting what may be a few food aversions to beef, some chicken dishes that I normally love, and generally being slightly nauseated by awful smells. No real cravings but I do find I must snack or eat meals every 2hrs or so otherwise I feel slightly weird/ill. When I go low I go pale and get tired needing to sit down immediately.

Still having mild trouble with constipation, but can't really complain since I've been doing idiotic things like swapping my pre-natal vitamins from bedtime to morning (not cos I forgot! Honest!).

I got out in the garden for two days and tidied things up in preparation for hosting Christmas lunch for our parents. Kids will be here for breakfast and back for dinner at my parents house.

After over a month of waking at 4am for a low blood sugar that would haunt me until dawn, I finally remembered to actually so something about it. Cue messing with nighttime basal rates at 1am the other night! Result? Flat as a pancake from midnite to 8am woohoo!!! Very proud of me self on that one. Guessing it won't last too long before things all change again.

So, Merry Christmas to all you lovely readers. Have a wonderful day and I hope Santa brings you what you asked for!

P.s. Can I ask you all to say a little wish/prayer for a good friend of mine who is doing clomid treatment right now and has, 2 days before Christmas, got another negative result. She's battling on but getting a little overwhelmed and considering IVF. I really hope her next cycle works and she gets what she's been dreaming of! Thank you! :)

Slightly belated: 7w6d ultrasound

Sorry to keep you all waiting so long, my only excuse is that I have been exhausted. Like, take a nap at 3pm exhausted!

Great news: we had the "8 week" ultrasound done on Thursday 28th 2013 when I was 7w6d.

Here is a piccy:

The size of a raspberry? Kidney bean?

If you need help deciphering the picture, the line between the two little white crosses is the crown to rump length CRL 1.29cm, and the head is down with bum up. The left curve is the back, and the interesting fluffy parts on the right is the umbilical cord, and perhaps arm and leg paddles? Who knows. We saw a good heartbeat of 164bpm which the OB/sonographer said was right on target. She also looked a bit bored but basically told us that everything looks right on track.

I have never been so relieved to see some flashing, pulsing pixels in my life.

Hubby filmed it on his phone, so I will try and post the video up sometime too.

When the OB checked my ovaries, she said they were still quite swollen, and even asked if I had been overstimulated. They were big and empty looking. She said they were still recovering, but I hadn't expected that to take so long. Who knew the ER would be so damaging to them?

In other news, we had another chat about the ante-natal testing, and Hubby basically came to the conclusion that I will worry like a crazy woman unless I know, and I came to the conclusion that if it was really that important to him I could live with not doing the testing. End result is that we have agreed to do the testing including blood screening test and nuchal translucency ultrasound scan. I am pretty relieved about that. It means a great deal to me that should we find anything, I can have time to prepare myself.

Symptoms? Yes. Plenty.

Sheer and all-encompassing exhaustion is the major one at the moment. I am fine (sort of) and awake one moment, and the next I am the walking dead. lol. Mostly I can get through the day, but I am taking some serious cat-naps in the weekends.

No morning sickness. And that is the way I have decided it shall stay! There has been a little bit of mild nausea, but it's actually more like what I would describe as extreme hunger. As a diabetic I don't get hungry, like ever and this is because I am and have always eaten on a regular schedule. On the rare occasions when I have experienced hunger (from illness etc) I never really recognise it as such, and it instead feels a lot like a cold, slightly nauseas feeling radiating out from my sternum/high-stomach area. It's not an "I'm about to puke" feeling, and it usually goes away with application of noms.

I am sneezing a lot at the moment, not sure if it's hayfever or just irritation from the increased blood supply to well, everywhere including my nose that's doing it. It's tolerable but if it gets much worse I will have to look and see if I can take any hayfever meds... don't like my chances though.

Peeing is my new hobby. My record at night is 3 times. And none of those was caused by a low or low alarm.

Prunes and kiwifruit are my new best friends, as are bottles of water.

My diabetes is being...predictable. Well, almost. It's not terribly stable, in that I am going low multiple times per day (and night), but the predictability comes in the timing of those lows. They tend to happen about 2hrs post meal. My DNE nurse put my I:C ratios up for all main meals a couple of weeks ago when I was still having quite a few highs. At the time I thought the increases in I:Cs were a bit late, since I could already tell that my blood sugars were dropping. And now they are tanking multiple times per day, however the insulin doesn't kick in soon enough if I take it when I start eating (I know, I know, supposed to take it earlier!) and I am still getting a noticeable rise in blood sugar after a meal. Trouble is by the time the bulk of the insulin is kicking in, the food is wearing off and that's when I go low.

When I was last on the phone to my DNE she recommended that I eat a lot MORE food and a lot more fat and protein, especially for lunch. Well, I have been trying that for a week now. I feel stuffed to the gunnels most of the time and have regained half a kilo (after losing 1.5Kg in 2 weeks which is what got her so worried). I do get more hunger feelings that I am used to, however I cannot really handle eating this quantity of food PLUS all the emergency food I am eating/drinking to get my blood sugars up when they go low.

This evening I went to the supermarket to get three things: yoghurt, strawberries, and bananas. Smoothie time. Well, I pulled into the carpark and since my Dex was still on start-up, I did a quick test. 3.8mmol so I drank a juice, ate an afghan bar and decided to wait. The Dex and Vibe then both started bleating for calibration tests, so I did those too. My brain was foggy but not so foggy that I couldn't do a quick nip into the supermarket. I had a written list and I thought I had just eaten all of my food - turns out my foggy brain had completely forgotten about the pack of jelly beans in the globe box, as well as doing anything sensible like phoning Hubby. Sigh. My brain just gets super fixated on a single thing, in this case I knew that the supermarket had food, and I knew I needed sugar, so that's where I went.

Got a trolley to hang on to instead of just a basket, and started working my way slowly through the shop to get the items on the list. Note to self: do not shop while low. What should have been a $15 trip cost $90!!!! All manner of tasty treats found their way into my trolley! Whoops! Just before I got to the checkout, I started to panic a bit as the low symptoms were coming on really strongly. I must have been looking rather pale as several shelf-packers gave me weird looks. I headed to the drink aisle to get something sweet and fast. Ended up grabbing a bottle of lucozade which is 68g of carbs in a bottle, but no caffeine - I checked.

At the checkout, the woman in the queue in front of me was taking forever. Then she decided to pay using a credit card that wouldn't scan. The receipt finally printed and the checkout-chick tried to fold it up, got is scrumpled up, tried again, and again; there was lots of smiling and laughing amongst them while I contemplated breaking all the social conventions of supermarket shopping by ripping into the lucozade before actually buying it. I had my eftpos card out and ready. I was standing with both feet flat, the trolley wedged against the counter so that I could lean on it. Even in my hazy mind I knew that 3 point support wouldn't tip over! Finally I got my groceries scanned, paid for and bagged, and headed out to the car. Got things loaded in ok, all while the world wooshed and fuzzed around me. A bit of a mix between extreme tiredness and hyper-sensitivity to lights and colours. My brain slows right down and I must carefully check every thought to ensure that what I am doing is correct, will use the least energy until I can get more glucose in me, and will not be liable to draw unwanted attention to me. I am quite good at this (I think) so managed to do a moderate sized grocery shop on a blood sugar of about 3mmol (and it was still dropping at one point, with Dex alarms blaring!) all while no one around me was any the wiser.

Got that lucozade in me, waited, tested and as soon as my brain felt ok, and the test was over 5mmol I drove home.

Hoping to get my DNE nurse on the phone early this week to see what she suggests to sort this out. And eating more is not practical!!! I just do not have room!

Only a could of weeks of work left and then I will be on Christmas holidays. Yay!

Thank you to everyone who wrote comments on my last post with advice and support. I really appreciate you help :D

8dp3dt Only 2 days to go!!!

I have spent most of the past couple of days wondering how to stop myself getting too optimistic.

A quick look at the website of a pregnancy-test company shows that I have several "symptoms" which could be good signs: fatigue (I'm getting very tired by 3pm, to the point where it is strenuous to remain standing for more than a few minutes), dizziness (mostly related to the fatigue, I think), tender breasts (could be the progesterone?), frequent need to pee (and I have unintentionally cut back my water intake due to teaching class - I am thirsty a lot though so must remember to drink more water!), cramping (again, could be progesterone), mood swings (not consistent thank goodness, but did you see my last post lol?) and, lastly, unfortunately: constipation (mild, but combined with cramping and progesterone and pre-natal iron means more fatigue). That is 7 out of their 9 listed symptoms.

Beta will be at 10dp3dt on Friday, which means it will be 15dp ER (egg retrieval and conception).

Many of the people around me seem more outwardly excited than I am. I am trying really hard to moderate my emotions and not get too damn soppy about all this, lest it come crashing down around my ears. I must remember that it is a tough journey for any embryo to make it, and that it is definitely not guaranteed at all. So, I seem to be spending odd and random snippets of my day trying to calm other people down. A lot. Like my delightful friend who tells me she has already started knitting!

At least my Mum, Dad and Sister are no trouble. If anything, they seem to be a mixture of stunned, embarrassed, delighted, and worried about the whole IVF process. Mostly, it is expressed as not asking questions and letting me do the talking. We have always been a family that doesn't really talk about taboo stuff, and you can't get much more taboo than the nitty gritty of reproduction!

Tonight I changed both my infusion site for my Animas Vibe and my Dexcom sensor. The infusion site change went well, although after dinner, and working on some coding project, I was pretty tired.

The Dexcom sensor change was a disaster. It stung when I inserted the sensor, and when I removed the inserter, I looked and saw a pool of blood gathering under the clear plastic. Boo.

Maybe it knows Halloween is just around the corner?

Initially it was just a spot of blood, but it grew quickly until it was about 1cm diameter: about the width of the sensor base.

I was distraught. Each sensor is about $125 (my parents are kindly funding them, and I was so proud of being able to make the previous sensor last 14 days) and they do not grow on trees. But my bigger problem is that if I have to replace it, I have almost no spare real estate on my belly!

With my dress still hitched up under my bra, and the little snap-off plastic doohicky that helps snap the transmitter in place still attached, I grabbed my Animas/Dexcom manual, and promptly cussed when I could immediately find the phone number. The Interwebs knew it though, and in no time I was talking to my Pump Rep at 9.30pm. She assured me that it happens, that I should put the transmitter in and see if it works, and email her in the morning if it hasn't hooked up by then. If it's still dodgy then they will replace it under warranty. Fantastic!

Thank you everyone so much for your kind words and support! I really appreciate it :D

CD 8 + 9: A Scan and a Mega Road Trip

Wow. What a way to spend a Tuesday. We have just returned from the clinic where we did the first ultrasound scan to check this IVF cycle is on track.

Results: Yes, all good.

Lining = 7.9 mm

Left side: 12, 16, 14, and 13 mm follicles

Right side: 16, 16, and 14 mm follicles

Total of 7, although the nurse said at this stage only 6 of them will probably be useful.

My scribbly notes from the meeting post-scan with the nurse.

The scan itself was the only part of the day that went well.

We started off getting up nice and early, and realising we had forgotten to pack any breakfast and wouldn't have time to get to our favourite cafe. I was due to have a FSH and Oestradiol blood test early enough to get the results in to the clinic. Got over to the path lab at 8.05am and I walked in while Hubby waited in the car. The waiting room was about a third full, and I started the-first-of-the-things-to-go-wrong! It took over 35 mins for the technician to call my name, which was plenty of time for Hubby to get worried and come looking for me.

We hurried out of there, and had 20 mins so we skipped around the corner to a cafe and got a quick bite of quiche lorraine and a cuppa tea.

In the clinic doors and up to the reception. The clinic is arranged with two wings, I like to call them the "office" and "doctor" wings. I was expecting us to be led through to the office wing to have the scan, like last time, but instead we were given a slip of paper and told to go across to the doctor wing. The doctor wing has no reception, and you have to just wait, in limbo, in the waiting room for the locked doctor-doors to open. Sometimes someone in the office will take pity and come and check on you, but most of the time we get left there for ages staring at the horrid crart (craft-art).

The nurse associated with our old Dr R came out to see us, and informed us that we were terribly early. To which I said, no, you are 6 mins late! She then pointed to the slip of paper and it did indeed say 10.22am. We had been told 9.10am!!! "Oh! But so-and-so called you yesterday and left a message!" I said no, I got no messages and no phone calls. I have asked them who-knows how many times to EMAIL ME. How hard is that? This nurse gets super-defensive very quickly, and sure enough she was intimating that I didn't know how to work my phone, or Hubby his phone, or either of us our home phone!! Grrr. Long story short we had another hours wait, so we took off and drove to a mall. I was wanting a bit of walk and it was raining, so a mall seemed like a semi-tolerable option. Of course, as soon as we got there it was time to turn around and come back. Red lights all the way back to the clinic.

When we strode into the doctor side for the second time, there were two other couples (?) in the waiting room. One of them had a toddler (! Why would you do this??? To the other patients? I mean really? You brought your CHILD to a fertility clinic. Words fail me.) and when a passing nurse asked who we were and what time our appointment was for, I said "9.10" this patient-with-toddler snidely commented "9.10!!" because we were now a tad late. Grr. Anyway we were hurried through the locked doors and I was asked to go for a wee then join Hubby and the doc in the scan room.

A new nurse, a new doc. Just whoever was on-call. I don't know their names. "Just take your bottom-things off" I nearly cracked up. Damn, should not have worn skin-tight skinny jeans! Doh! I was just hopping up on the exam table when the doc whipped back the curtain and at the very same moment my knee went through a hole in the table! Turns out it is a fancy pants table/bed and most people do not get on it knee first. lol.

Ice broken.

The scan went well, no pain at all. See the good scan results above. 7 follies. Definitely no over stimulation. Whew.

Pants on, go next door to get more drugs and talk to the nurse.

Turns out the egg retrieval will be this Friday (3 days away CD 12). I have one more stim injection of Puregon which I have given myself tonight (Tues CD 9). Tomorrow morning (Weds CD 10) I have the last Orgalutran injection, and in the afternoon the clinic will call to tell me what time to give the trigger Ovidrel injection. It has to be given exactly 36hrs prior to the egg collection procedure.

We asked what that procedure would be like, and the nurse said it was done under sedation (hyponovel and fentanyl) and should take about 10 - 15 mins in theatre. I asked to have a dextrose IV ready, and Hubby asked to have the IV cannula inserted as early as possible because we have learnt from prior surgery that a diabetic hypo + collapsed veins = no fun. The nurse agreed that this was all a good idea, and then said "so are you what, type 1 diabetic?" This was after telling her directly that I was type 1 diabetic, and showing her my dexcom and insulin pump prior to the scan to check it wouldn't interfere with the ultrasound. So she finally understood (at one point she thought it was Hubby who was the diabetic one! Read the medical notes PLEASE) and went to check with another doc if the egg retrieval procedure could be scheduled as late as possible so that I could still eat breakfast on Friday morning. This was after telling her not to worry, and that I would prefer the first appointment actually, and that I could miss a meal now that I am on the pump. People hear what they want to hear, not what you tell them sometimes.

She gave us these drugs:

Puregon Pen and needles.

My dosage for tonight is 150 more units of stimulation using the drug Puregon this time.

Puregon (Tuesday night, 150 units) (for the record, I had an unexpected low blood sugar 30 mins after injection. Don't know if it's related or not.)

Orgalutran (for tomorrow morning, this one is to prevent premature ovulation)

Ovidrel (this one is the trigger injection and is to be given 36 hrs before egg collection)

It was a bit hilarious being taught how to use the puregon pen, considering I had been doing multiple daily injections for diabetes since I was 5. Still good to watch and just make sure there was nothing new to see.

We got out of there are started the drive home knowing that a major storm had just thrashed the north island and the road south was currently closed.

The trip should consist of 3 hrs in the car going across one mountain.

It ended up taking us 9.5 hrs, and we went to 3 cities, tried to get over 1 mountain, went around 2 other mountains, across a gazillion rivers, through a million puddles, past a trillion slips and goats, and got turned back back sorry-for-themselves looking road workers in orange jackets telling us "the bridge has been washed away" "there is severe flooding" "you will have to go back" "the road is closed".

We were trying to go from a northern region to the south-western region. We ended up having to go south-east, then more south, then more east, then very south, to come right around and enter the western region from the south instead of the north! It was the longest road trip of my life and it is the only occasion that I have physically been unable to get to my homeland. At one point, I considered how it would have been easier to fly to Australia and back in, rather than drive!

But we are finally home. Everything went wrong except for the scan!

Oh, and I have to go in for a blood test tomorrow morning, do an infusion site change, and teach a class. Oh and re-book the motel for Friday. I need a nap.

p.s. If you're wondering what happened to CD 8: I went to work and taught class in the morning, then we drove up to Hamilton and checked into the motel. I had my Orgalutran injection in the morning and did a +20% temp basal increase for 4 hours which worked great guns.

CD 6: First Orgalutran injection

Did you know that they still used glass syringes? No? Neither did I, but that is how the Orgalutran is packaged:

Orgalutran is such a mouthful of a word. I prefer to call them my Orangutan injections, and Hubby and I startled the step-kids by hooting like monkeys last night when we were talking about doing the first shot. haha

Source Where you get all good orangutans.

This first orgalutran/orangutan certainly seemed to affect my blood sugar. It is a ganirelix injection, and here is what happened after breakfast (1 slice of peanut butter toast + tea = 16g carbs total)

Blood sugar reaction after breakfast and some tasty ganirelix / orgalutran

My headache is still here. Yes. I am now grumpy and tired of having this headache. It makes me useless. I went to buy a birthday present in town today, by myself, and it was a bad idea. The Saturday crowds, the noise, and soon I was scurrying back to my car to drink water and test my blood sugar and think calm, calm, calm non-headachy thoughts. And I have at least this many more of these orangutans to go!

I found this to be the most unusual injection I have ever given myself. And I like to think I am a bit of a connoisseur. I have been doing multiple daily injections since I was 5, so I've seen the sharp end of a few needles. This syringe, apart from being glass (first glass syringe I've ever used!) had a strange cap with rubber inside which I've never seen before. The needle itself was the gauge I like to class as "drainpipe". No mucking around here with dainty little teflon coated needles. No. This one was so thick, although it honestly truly didn't hurt, I had to push it into the skin! It went pop and then it was in. No pain, but then I had to draw back on the plunger to check I wasn't injecting into a blood vessel, then inject.

The other strange thing was how both the nurse and the instructions didn't want me to remove the air-bubble from the syringe. I really struggled with this one, and was about to hold the syringe upright and push the bubble out, but then remembered the nurse telling me "no don't worry, just inject the whole thing!" I came to a compromise with myself and injected so that the needle pointed slightly downwards and the bubble rose to the plunger-end. I injected so that about half of the bubble went in. There was a little hiss noise as some of the air escaped back out from my skin.

The headache continued through lunch with the step-kinds and MIL, and just got worse. I ended up giving in and having a nap before dinner, while the kind and wonderful Hubby cooked us all a tasty dinner of lamb chops and veges with cheese sauce. He has been absolutely marvellous, and keeps checking how I'm feeling. The other day he told me he'd like "to wrap me up in a blanket and keep me safe through it" Awww :D

When I was woken for dinner, the headache was so bad I thought I would have to take some ibuprofen. I can't take paracetamol (well, I can, but I don't want to) because it will interfere with the Dexcom and it just plain doesn't work. at. all. And there is such conflicting advice on the interwebs about whether it's safe or not. Seems it's a bit of a no-no when using gonal-f, and the previous RE said no ibuprofen. But this new doc and nurse didn't mention it as a problem. I've already had 4 x 200mg capsules since CD2 because the headache turned into a migraine and there ain't no way I can deal with that pain on my own.

7pm, dinnertime, and I had a new strategy. I would do the bolus dose of insulin earlier, and give a generous dose to stop any marked spike rise in blood sugar. Also, I had some 1/2 juice and water and just drank sips of it over the hour post meal to keep the blood sugar level. This has worked very well so far, and being stable, my headache has finally alleviated:

Above, you can see a little rise from the meal after 7pm / 1900 and then the insulin on board IOB starts to kick in and bring it down gently again. I have been monitoring it now for 2 hours and it's extremely flat! Win!

Got another letter from the fertility clinic, this one from our nurse. It confirms out treatment plan with the dates for specific injections and scans, but it also suggests that "expected week of egg retrieval: week of Sat 19 Oct 2013". I am wondering what will happen after our appointment on Tuesday.

We have a birthday party to attend tomorrow night, and on Monday I am supposed to be teaching a class. If I have this headache I will stay home and nap; it's just not worth tiring myself out, and I get so very tired at the moment.

My Pump Start Experience - Part 1

I officially became an insulin pumper on 18th September 2013, at 10.19am.

I really wanted to write down what it's like to go on an insulin pump for the first time while it's all still fresh in my mind, so that I have a good record and so I can share my experiences with others online. Although I've seen plenty of blogs written by pumpers, I haven't stumbled across many "pump start" posts that aren't kids on pumps - and I'm a T1D 25+ yrs!

Because there is so much to tell you all, and I am so very tired at present, I've decided to break the writing of this post into a couple of parts. So please follow along!

As yet... still unnamed. Thoughts? "My Pump" is a little boring!

My pump is a sparkly new pink Animas Vibe. Since I am in New Zealand, I was able to apply for - and have received - public funding for this pump valued at NZD $8000. The consumables ~$2000 p/year are also funded, and my first approval is valid for 9 months. I have to reapply after that and so long as I behave myself and show I am making improvements to my health and keeping my HbA1c below 60(?) mmol then I should be fine.

It took several months from the time I made the decision to email my endo and say "Hey, I want to go on a pump! Can you write my application letter?" to actually being approved, to organising meetings with the two pump reps and then coordinating with my Diabetes Nurse Educator to book in the pump start. Which was a bit of a struggle.

But I'm here now, and it's going superbly well. I am completely exhausted, these last 3 days have been incredibly intense, but I think it is going to be a GOOD THING for me :)

My thoughts before...

When I first thought about getting a pump, about 10 years ago, I didn't know much about them. I was scared of the idea of being tethered to something all the time, and I figured that since they weren't funded (then), that I would just have to do my best to emulate a pump with injections. I tried this as best I could, by using Lantus and Humalog, and doing smaller doses throughout the day. I tried to emulate a combo/square bolus by splitting my bolus injection for large meals. I used two apps by FridayForward (I credit them with a 2% drop in my HbA1c) which I heartily recommend as they taught me about I:C ratios, ISF, and blood glucose targets. I last did diabetes education when I was 5. That is 26 years ago!! So I had just been coasting along, doing my thing, but not really keeping up with technology or best practice for diabetes management. So once I got the wake up call from my new Endo that what I thought was good control was in fact, quite erratic and full of fluctuations, I decided to do something about it. I am not sure that any diabetes management would work without that internal motivation, cos every method takes lots of work.

I found Kerri Sparling's blog, sixuntilme, and I pored over the archives there. Suddenly, an insulin pump seemed desirable again, and her writing and videos showed me how a confident successful woman could handle diabetes with conviction. I explored further, finding TuDiabetes and the massive collection of wonderful diabetics online who are all asking questions, sharing, and teaching. My diabetes education was online, it was self-taught, and it was at my own pace. If I saw people talking about "IOB" in a post, I would take initiative and go find out what it was, then see if I could apply that to my own situation with MDI. Gradually, I found the online support network that I had been missing during my teens. I did not knowingly encounter another T1D after I attended my last diabetic camp at about age 12, and I didn't stay in contact with any of the kids as I was too young to realise how important they might be to me later. I felt that diabetes was my thing, it was personal to me, and it made me special. I was the only one who had it. Very surprisingly, I never had any real rebellion against diabetes and my self-management. I just had a whole lot of very out-dated learning that I still trusted in, and being reluctant to change, my new Endo and Diabetes Nurse Educator (DNE) had a bit of a battle convincing me otherwise.

In more recent years, I have been much more vocal about my diabetes. I have become more confident as a person; I graduated, got a job, was made redundant, found a wonderful new job, I broke my back twice, I got married, we decided to start a family, I have teenage step-kids, I started blogging and sharing my story about T1D and infertility. Lot's of stuff, you know: life.

My Endo saw the work I was doing, but would always tell me he had no ideas about what was causing my horrendous fluctuations in blood glucose levels. I was testing 8+ times per day, on a split dose of Lantus (9am, 8pm) with 5+ Humalog injections (I:C 1:8am, 1:10lunch, 1:12dinner, 1:14supper). He wrote me blood tests for everything under the sun, trying to find the magical missing element which was causing all the trouble. But we never found anything.

This. OMG. Go get some and put it in your mouthparts NOW!

In the lead up to the pump start day, I was tense and nervous and pretty useless: I had trouble concentrating, I was getting itchy excema on my back, and my face was trying it's best to break-out. I may have eaten a whole lot of comfort chocolate. Although my logical brain knew that there would be nurses and doctors and husbands to look after me, I was terrified of...something. Most of the time I was ludicrously happy that I was finally going to get to try a pump. And stupendously ridiculously deliriously happy that I was getting a CGM (bought by my wonderful Dad xox). I tried to articulate this strange dichotomy of feelings to my husband, my friend at work, and my Mum, but I could never get them to understand how I felt.

Since we are about to start our first round of IVF in October (less than a month, now), I had this added pressure to have the pump work well. The whole reason and motivation for actually getting off my arse and doing this work to switch to the pump was to prepare for any potential pregnancy. A diabetic friend of mine had been on MDI and when she finally got pregnant and wanted to go on the pump, she was too sick to do so. I knew I had to get this show on the road. And what's more, it seemed that the pump and CGM was waaaaaaaay more complex than the IVF stuff. There, the fertility doctors are in control (kind of). They decide the dosages and everything has a fixed time span. But with the pump I knew I would be doing 2 days training then be trying to do it on my own. It seemed like a much more mammoth task than contemplating IVF. I guess it's just due to the fact that I can be a control freak, and the thought of being out of control with my diabetes didn't exactly give me warm fuzzies.

So, I spent the time organising things. This was partly purely practical, to be ready. But also to fill my time and stop my stupid brain from going into a nervous meltdown of anxiety. Which I did at least twice.

A diabetic from the South Island (Hi S!) made contact with me via email, and it was wonderful to have someone experiencing the same things. I also watched a lot of videos about inserting sites, changing cartridges, and most important: where to wear the pump!? Two nights before pump start I royally freaked out about that, since I decided I only had one pair of pants that would be strong enough to support the weight of the pump. I wear a lot of dresses, and after watching some videos by Candace from Sweetful Stuff and Diabetic Danica, I took action and planned what I could do with my wardrobe.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how it would feel to wear a pump. Would it hurt? Would I be able to do things? What would it be like to shower with things stuck to me? I had these questions so I read forums and blogs to get answers. I stuck a band-aid to my tummy for a couple of days to gauge what it might feel like, and when I did an injection with my pen, I held the needle under the surface (quite still) for half a minute and decided that I couldn't actually feel it at all. Only the sharp bit hurts as it goes through the nerves at the surface of the skin. Ok, it should be fine, I decided.

An impressive big box of stuff. Note: always take the time to look like a suspicious patient and CHECK the box against the script! Bits were missing causing 2 additional pharmacy trips :/

Animas Vibe with cartridges back left and Inset 30 infusion sites and lines back right.

My pump arrived, and the consumables. The folks at my pharmacy had never processed a pump script before so they were really intrigued by it all. I think that pharmacy became my second home this week! lol :P  Then my Dad bought the CGM and that arrived. Soon I had boxes and boxes of stuff covering the lounge room floor. I had read some of the Animas manual online, so decided not to freak myself out by reading the printed one prior to the training. The Dexcom came with a DVD, so I took it round to my parents place and Dad and I watched it together. It was quite tedious, but later I found it so useful as preparation.

Being in contact with my pump rep and asking questions was really helpful, and she made me feel a lot calmer about things, like I would be supported throughout.

Oh, and I had a birthday in amongst all that too!

From my Sweet Husband! Aww!

Look out for my next post: "The pump start"

The great un-boxing!

So, true to form I couldn't help but take a whole bunch of photos as I un-boxed my new toy:

[spoiler alert: contains gratuitous shots of shiny medical equipment. In pink.]

Click through to Flickr to read the descriptions.

This was by far the biggest and most impressive box of goodies I've ever collected from my pharmacy. All the pharmacists were hovering around like chooks and they seemed very interested in the pump - this being the first one my pharmacy has ever ordered.

I ended up getting the colour I wanted, and it's kind of a reddy-pink which I am already fond of. I am thinking of naming it. Too naff? Do you name yours?

Although I have a huge box of stuff now, I suspect that some bits of my prescription may be missing? I haven't seen the script, but last week my pharmacist was asking me what length needles I wanted - and yet there is definitely no box of old-skool needles amongst my haul. There is also no box of skin-prep wipes, and although I know they have received the script for my 10ml vials of Humalog, I will have to go back and get it cos that is also missing. Grrr.

I did remember to collect a new pottle of 5mg folic acid tablets. I am taking them nightly, along with Elevit and 1000 IU Vit D3 as suggested by my endocrinologist/s both to support pre-natal requirements, and to try and prevent any future offspring getting T1D (that's what the Vit D is all about - although I should really be upping the dose to about 2000 IU by now). Last night I ordered more vitamins online and boy is that stuff expensive! In fact, the vitamins are worse than the insulin pump lol! Yay for government funding. There is NO WAY I would be able to afford this otherwise. Vitamins = $85 vs. Pump and 3 months supplies = $33.

Speaking of expensive things, my parents have kindly offered to purchase the Dexcom system for me. I am very, very grateful for this opportunity, and have called to put in my order today. My pump rep said I could do a one month trial of the Dexcom if I bought one box (4) of sensors, but I am going to buy the transmitter too, and ask if I can trial the Dexcom receiver unit. Since the Vibe pump is a receiver itself I don't technically need the Dex Rx, but it would be good to try it out if I can. Let's just say that this request took three phone calls and being transferred around the call centre in Auckland between about a gazillion people. All very polite, and we got there in the end.

I took my big box of loot around to my parents' place this evening (in the rain) to show them, since they had never seen a pump in person before. Dad and I watched the DVD and OMG is it boring! Such minutiae. Kills you with details and repetition, like being hypnotized. Except I must pay attention or else risk terrible consequences with not being able to work the pump lol. Long story short: do not watch the DVD out of curiosity. It is serious and it is educational. Not something to watch for fun. Certainly, nothing in comparison to Diabetic Danica, Kerri Sparling, Candace, or Kim Vlasnik!

It is now exactly 1 week until I become bionic, and T-minus ~27 days until I start injecting IVF hormon-a-ma-phones. Also, I shall turn 31 (cough) shortly. There will be eating of vast quantities of tasty treats. :D

I want OFF this damn rollercoaster! Can you help?

Next week the students come back and I will be in teaching mode again. That will be exhausting but challenging work which I'm looking forward to.

The week just gone has been absolutely frenetic, with last minute course prep (still not done, and it's Sunday!), moving the entire Art department into a newly refurbished facility, oh yeah, and 3 days of compulsory academic staff training!! It's been super nuts.

I know my diabetes control has been degrading. It's like, seriously crappy at the moment. Here's the last 7 days for you:



(Apologies for having to twist your neck to see that!)

As you can see, I'm all over the map. There are some trends, which I guess are a blessing as it may just mean the Lantus (basal) dose is screwed up:




Massive peaks and troughs = massive headaches, tiredness, grumpiness, and brain-fogginess :(

So what I'm doing about it is some intensive tracking and analysis to see if I can figure out where the hell I'm going so wrong. I've just purchased Diabetes Diary for iPhone and that's where I got the pretty graphs. Have to say that so far, I'm liking this app the best of all. And I've tried most of them!

I'd been using the Insulin Calcilator app, made by the same folks (http://www.fridayforward.com/) for nearly a year now and I credit it with a 1.5% drop in my HbA1c, so I figured their diary app was worth a shot too. I like how the two apps work together. I can take a bloodsugar test, enter the results into the Insulin Calculator, then just press a button and it transfers all the data across to the Diabetes Diary, where I can add more info and make adjustments. Cool eh? :)

I think it's really good that I'm back in intensive analysis mode, because if 10+ bloodsugar tests a day aren't giving nice smooth control there must be something else going on. And I can't find it without graphs, averages, and data to help me.

Let's be clear: I test constantly. I inject semi-religiously, and I track it all in my paper log book:



But that doesn't give the instant clarity of a graph, or the insight of weekly averages. I hope this system helps. I suspect it will. I've done this intensive analysis thingy before and it has always had positive results, even if only minor.

BTW, if you can spot any major issues for me by looking at the graphs, please let me know in the comments. All help on nutting this one out is appreciated. :)

I take Lantus twice a day (11u breakfast, 9u dinner), and bolus with Humalog. I'm incredibly sensitive to changes in insulin, and am on child-size doses of Humalog. My I:C ratio is 1:14. I eat between 90 - 180g carbs per day including emergency food like juice and stuff. I walk, weather permitting :P And I work hard and get pretty stressed out at times, which never helps. Anything else you would like to know so you can help, let me know in the comments. Cheers everyone.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Retinopathy Photography and Feijoas

More good news: eyes are fine :D

This is not my retina. But mine looks a bit like that...

I am very pleased that the local eye clinic/hospital has invested in a special anti-diabetic-retinopathy-eye photographing machine, because it means I don't have to have the horrid eye-dilating drops. They sting. They make your eyes sensitive to light (light hurts them), and everything goes blurry so in the past I've had to have a helper drive me home. But no more drops! In and out in under 20 minutes! :)

First day back at work after the hols, and the building was freezing cold. Winter has hit our region with a vengeance. We've had torrential rain and gale force winds for the last 3 days. My cat went mad with the wind and yowled all day and night. Nothing could soothe him, poor thing. There was minor flooding in some places, but the wind! Two trees blown down in my street, and when I got into work today both my colleagues in the office had a big tree down in their gardens too.

I am looking suspiciously at my new fig tree. It has gone from a perfect, perpendicular happy tree, to a slanty, suspicious, "I might fall over, I might not" tree. May have to get out there and tie a rope around it to hold it upright....is that a good idea? I'm not sure...would the tree then just snap?

But winter/autumn is also feijoa season. Yum.

Here in New Zealand, you never buy feijoas. Instead, you wait, until eventually 5 people will offer you a big bag each of fresh feijoas from their trees. "Please take them!" He he he :P I've planted a feijoa tree too, and so far I've eaten 2 fruit off it. I have also stolen many fruit off the neighbour's tree over the back fence as the branches hang low into my vege garden. And I stare wistfully through the fence into the other neighbour's property, where hundreds of feijoas rain down on the dirt and don't get eaten by anyone except the birds. When the sun comes out, and the feijoas on the ground get a bit warm and start to ferment, you can see the birds walking around all tipsy. This is what my cat waits for. :P (Don't worry, he is well fed and only really catches lizards).

I got a bucket load of stuff from the pharmacy last night. Enough bags that the other customers gave me funny looks. Ha.

Top left: pen needles, boxes of Optium test strips, orange plastic case: glucagon emergency kit, Humalog pen vials (insulin), small white and orange box: statin, small white bottle: ace-inhibitor, grey pens at the bottom of pic: Lantus (insulin)

This is actually a small haul for me, as it's the tail end a the prescriptions from my old GP. And how in hell did anyone think that 2 Lantus pens would last a month? I'm using 690 units per month, and one pen only hold 300 units if you're lucky. Stupid old GP. Can't wait to put in my shiny new prescription from my new GP. :)

Took my first dose of the statin and the ace-inhibitor (to PROTECT ZE KIDNEYS!) last night, and I've not had any way-ward symptoms today.

Oh, and had an insulin disaster *smack forehead* moment when I was packing all the above diabetes-crap away. I found out that 3 vials of my oh so carefully hoarded Humalog actually expired last October. So now my stash is significantly smaller. Although I haven't had the nerve to throw them away yet....better to keep them, just in case.

Watching TV gets interesting

One of the banks has just started a new advertising campaign. It uses a really poignant song, and it just gets me every time it plays:

Sorry, you can't click it!

I couldn't save the video off their website, so to hear the song you'll have to watch it here:  http://www.asb.co.nz/CreatingFutures/ivf/

I have to say, I had already been thinking about how we could maybe look at affording IVF privately. So far, I've not come up with many bright ideas, however, I've not been feeling too bad since I've been soooo busy at work - end of year and I've been snowed under with marking and stuff. I guess everything just got too hard for me when we got told we couldn't get public funding. I wouldn't say that my dream has died, far from it, but I've found a way (don't ask me how!) to cope and push the thoughts from my mind for a good chunk of my day.

Thoughts like,

• Will I ever be a Grandma?
• Who will I pass all my stuffed toys to?
• Will I ever make my sister into an Aunty (she'd make the BEST aunty!)
• Will I get to see if our kid/s have dark hair?
• How will I fill up my years if I don't start a family?
• What will be the meaning of my life if I can't have kids with the man I love?
• How will I cope long term, once the "clock starts ticking"?
• How long can we wait, since Hubby is not a spring chicken?
• Will I ever get to decorate a nursery and buy oh-too-cute baby clothes?
• Will I get to experience all the nervousness and fear that comes with pregnancy?
• I already know that I will be a good Mum, and that Hubby is a good Dad, but will we get to have kids together?
• Will I ever get to agonise over choosing a kindergarten/primary school/high school/university??
• How will I choose a name for my baby?
• Am I being stupid wanting something when the world seems to be telling me NO NO NOOO again and again?
• Am I willing to go into debt to have only one chance at this? etc etc   ....sigh   :S

Ha! Who am I kidding! Those thoughts are still there, just perhaps not resting on the surface like a few months back :P

The sucky thing is there is ZERO information on their website about what they are actually offering - I'm assuming it's a personal loan. Something I want to avoid, since if I did get pregnant on the first pop (ok, yes, I am assuming a lot.... just let me think myself into a knot for a moment please :P  ) I would be definitely taking time off work, so would not be able to "administer" a loan of that scale. I'm very nearly debt free from uni, so I don't particularly relish the thought of plunging back into the red. Yeah, so the nice marketing folks at the bank have no idea, as they want, no, demand their potential customers to come in to discuss IVF in the bank (like, no freaking way!!) or phone them (a stranger on the phone, you've got to be kidding), or even, yup, you guessed it - facebook. What? And let all my IRL folks know the haps? Nup, no sale, happy yellow bank.

In happier news, Christmas is coming!! :D

We are hosting Christmas lunch at our place, and as it will be high-summer here in NZ, a classic backyard bbq is in order. Plus, we will have healthy selection of gluten free dishes and (weather permitting) fresh garden peas, new potatoes and tomatoes! Oh I hope the sky stays sunny!

I want to revamp the back garden. I've already planted a new rose garden with beautiful old roses such as:

Albertine

Avalanche

Blackberry Nip

Dublin Bay

Falstaff

Heritage

Jubilee Celebration

Othello

And we are thinking, maybe, of getting chickens. What do you think? Any of you have experience keeping pet chickens? Do you think it's a good idea? Fresh hen eggs....mmmm :)

Books I'm reading

So I toddled over to www.stirrup-queens.com and found this book written by Melissa Ford:

http://thelandofif.blogspot.com/

I read the first chapter on amazon.com, so I've decided to order it. It will take over a month to get here to New Zealand! What!? It's almost like we live on the moon! :P

That got me thinking, maybe the local library has some books on dealing with infertility. It's been a hard thing to come to terms with this second diagnosis, but in reading Melissa's book (bits of it) I've already discovered things that are helpful to me. So I gathered my parking meter money and headed off to the library in search of more information.

I took all the interesting looking books, as follows:

The IVF Revolution, by Prof. Robert Winston

Why me? The Real Life Guide to Infertility by Loraine Brown

What to Expect When You're Experiencing Infertility by Debby Peoples and Harriette Rovner Ferguson 

Unsung Lullabies, Understanding and Coping with Infertility by Jaffe, Diamond, and Diamond

IVF & Ever After by Nicola Bedos

Infertility, A Guide for New Zealanders by Sue Saunders. No link, as I couldn't find anywhere selling it!

Looks like I have a lot of reading to get through! I've started with the last one on the list, as it's written by  Sue Saunders who is currently working as a counsellor at the fertility clinic that's we've had dealings with - how's that for irony! Anyway, even though it was written before the turn of the millennium, the information about emotional stuff seems sound.

Here's a bit of depressing news: GST has gone up. GST is Goods and Services Tax, and it applies to most everything you buy in NZ. It went from 12.5% up to 15%. "Why is that interesting to me?" you say, well, it affects the cost of IVF treatment. What was once around about $11K has just jumped to over $12.5K!!! :(  I sat down with a calculator last night and worked out the cost. I suppose it doesn't really matter if I reveal the name of the clinic, it's not like there are many to choose from in New Zealand: Fertility Associates. (P.S I really really think they should consider changing the photo on their homepage - a big pic of a baby is just insulting!) Yeah, so at least the cost of everything is on their website.

I'm trying to decide what to do, how to progress things a bit. On one hand, I've already written to www.fertilitynz.org asking for their help, and they have said they will be advocates for us and forward our letter of complaint on to the fertility clinic. However that was over a month ago. Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just complain directly to the clinic. What do you think?

The other thing I'm trying to decide is whether or not I should approach the Health and Disability Commissioner. Here in NZ there is quite a good system where patient/consumers can easily make complaints about health providers. I've made use of them once before when my endocrinologist did a shoddy job of switching me over to Lantus (he got the dosing all messed up, which meant I had a bad hypo and broke my back, then he blamed me. Yes, he's my current endo - I live in a small town!) and the folks there were quite helpful and very clear about my rights. I know they probably can't do much in the way of getting us the access to public funding we require, but it would be good to stop a similar thing happening to other couples. It's totally changed my life. The more I think about what happened, I become convinced that we are being discriminated against. Just because Hubby has a vasectomy from a previous marriage, that should have nothing whatsoever to do with our marriage. Our marriage is infertile, with 0% chance of conception and over 7 years of trying. In any way you look at it, telling us to wait 3 years feels like a penalty that neither of us could have ever done anything to avoid. I read a couple of government reports by a chap called Wayne Gillett, in which he noted the feelings of grief and devastation are just as great in a couple who are "situationally infertile". I must get a copy of those reports (also quite old) and post interesting parts up here. Getting them may be hard though, as they are at the library at work, and I DO NOT want my co-workers to see me getting them out of the library. Maybe I will just photocopy them...

Anyway, I'm feeling tired and high and hungry. Want to eat, need to drink (water), and do a test. Until another day, have a great Thursday/Friday in your part of the world. :)