I learned some things this week. One, although I thought it sounded amazing, staying in hotel connected to a Galleria is just not a good thing. Two, not everyone has the same understanding of personal space. Three, Continental Airlines doesn’t have rows 13 or 33 and on some of my flights they do not have a row 9 either….dont understand any of these except for the 13. I was lucky enough to get to go to a great women’s conference in Houston, TX this week. The conference and my room were both in the Westin which is connected to the galleria. Being the fashionista I believe myself to be, I thought that was great….but now that I am home looking at my bank account and all my new treasures….I realize that I probably should have stayed somewhere else or hidden my wallet from myself. Whenever I go to Texas for work or play, I come back feeling like a young teenager again. I grew up in Texas and moved to Denver when I was 18. Visiting the lone star state gives me the sense that I am young, rich and free of all the problems I normally deal with on a daily basis. I often return with a renewed sense of self and fashion followed by a few weeks of “what the heck should I wear this with.” While traveling from Denver to Houston, I had a few encounters with the same woman. On the shuttle ride from the check in terminal to the gate, her luggage fell on me twice then as we were getting off the shuttle she hit my heels with her bag. Taking a deep breath I just smiled and said it was ok after all I would probably never see her again. Well I was wrong, the flight attendants were getting ready to close the door to the plane when in runs the same woman from the shuttle. I took a deep breath and watched as she passed each row and stopped in front on mine. She threw her bag up in the overhead compartment and started climbing over me before I told her I was going to get up. What are the chances the same woman from the shuttle would be sitting right next to me on the plane??? Well to finish the experience with this woman, as it came time for our row to exit the plane she started pushing me out in the aisle at the same time the woman that had been sitting in front of me started taking down her bag from the over head bin. Her bag, fell directly on my head and everyone around us gasped. Only then did the woman from the shuttle back off and sit back in her seat. I just looked at my friends who had been on the flight and laughed it off rubbing my head as I walked off the plane. As for the missing rows in Continental planes, I have no idea why they do that. I understand why they don’t want a 13th row but don’t know why they wouldn’t have a 9 or 33 or if it was just that particular plane??? As I returned home from the conference I was anxious to get through my last day of work for the week so I could go to my doctors appointment. Hormone day, it was finally here! I had been preparing for it all month with acupuncture and working out.
My husband and I went to see Dr. Santorro. I had asked her to describe what IVF with donor eggs process was like for him (just in case). He has stated before that he is really against it but I wanted him to have the facts. After a demonstration, Dr. Santorro stated that the estrogen I was going to be taking was estrodiol and that it would be in a patch I was to wear directly above my hip and change twice a week. I was also to take progesterone on the 1st through the 12th of every month. This combination would help me ovulate. Then the doctor explained that she also wanted me to start taking 50mg of DHEA a day. I freaked out a bit inside as she also explained the side effects which included acne and facial hair. My husband looked over and said “if you get a mustache we wont have to worry about trying to have a baby” and we all laughed. I was thinking to myself “to bad I already have one and just rinse it off every month”….but I guess what men don’t know doesn’t scare them :0)
I was feeling pretty good about things when my doctor started describing POF and that most of the time someone with POF has a 10% change of getting pregnant. This made me cringe as she went through the statistics and as she kept talking I felt my positive attitude slowly wither away. To change the mood I interrupted her and said “so when I get pregnant, because I know this is going to work, what do I need to do. Do I need to stop taking any of these medications or keep taking them?” The doctor replied with “good, I’m glad you feel this is going to work. When you get pregnant, you will want to stop taking the DHEA. We will keep you on the estrodiol and progesterone because they are a very low dose and will be good for the baby.” She handed me the prescription write ups and said “good luck.” I was thinking to myself as we walked to the car. I am already having to worry about my hormone levels, premature aging and weight gain but now the doctor has added possible adult acne and access facial hair to the picture….I was picturing myself waking up one day and looking like the princess on the Shrek movie.
I could tell my husband was really bumming on the ride home from the appointment so I decided to break the silence with “you know babe, they gave us a 0% chance one year ago and we can’t assume my body is the same as another woman’s so we have a good chance.” He stayed quiet for about 15 minutes which made me sit there and wonder if I should have just stayed quiet and not said anything. After about 15 minutes he replied with “that’s true, we should give it about two years and then if we still haven’t gotten pregnant then I think we should look into IVF.” Wow, two years of waiting….can I do that???? You know what, I think I can. I am fine with the fact that this is plain and simple just not my time to become a mother. God knows best. So I am officially going to concentrate my energy on taking care of myself, my marriage, my family and getting a new home ready for when the time finally comes. I have been doing a lot o thinking in the past couple of days and I came up with this….I have accepted that maybe if in two years I have still not gotten pregnant that must mean that my eggs are no good. Meaning, I could possible pass on something to my child that I wouldn’t want to such as leukemia, colon cancer, liver problems, diabetes and my favorite Celiacs Disease. It seems that genetic diseases are getting worse with each generation and perhaps me not being able to get pregnant naturally is God saving my husband and I from an even bigger heartbreak of having a sick child and loosing them at a young age? Or even worse having a child with so many problems they wouldn’t be able to fully enjoy their lives. I have come to the realization that I need to stop pushing for this to happen, there is a reason it isn’t happening right now even if I don’t understand it right now. So this is me, taking an oath with my hand over my glamour magazine “Lord, I promise to stop being so pushy on restoring my fertility and understand that things will happen in your time and not mine. Please however understand that I may be exploring other options come December of 2012 as I will see that as my sign that is what I am supposed to do.” Ok, I feel better already.
When my husband and I went to pick up some DHEA at vitamin cottage I was a little shocked when they vitamin expert told us that they didn’t carry it due to it’s side effects. They had a whole sheet explaining why they refused to carry it. A bit worried, we walked across the street to the Sunflower Market to see if they carried it. They had four different brands so my husband and I split the bunch to read the labels and were able to find one that was gluten free. On the way home, my husband expressed his concern on me taking the supplement and I told him that the sheet from vitamin cottage state patients were fine to take it under a doctor’s care. A bit worried myself, I decided to do some research when I got home. I found an amazing article on DHEA. Here is the link http://www.centerforhumanreprod.com/dhea.html?gclid=CJariN_YgqUCFYK5KgodT0PCOg. The article states that DHEA “ is a relatively recent development in the treatment of premature ovarian aging but in a very short time has demonstrated remarkable results in the treatment of prematurely aging ovaries. Effects can only be summarized as rejuvenating ovarian function.” I was so excited to read this first part of the article that I had to stop, print it to PDF and send to my family members before I even finished the rest of the article. It goes on to explain how a patient started taking DHEA on her own before starting an IVF treatment. “She greatly increased the number of eggs in her next IVF treatment and the doctors were wondering what had caused these results. After investigating, it was found that after taking the DHEA for only 4 months, the 43 year old woman’s ovaries were behaving like those of a woman in her 20’s.” As I continued to read on I found a list of “Highlights of DHEA effects”. Some of them were increases egg & embryo counts, improves eggs & embryo quality, speeds up time to pregnancy in fertility treatment, increases spontaneously conceived pregnancies (my favorite one), and another favorite decreases spontaneous miscarriage rates. There was also another list of non-fertility related positive side effects which are improved overall feeling, physically stronger, improved sex drive, mentally sharper and better memory. My husband and I both decided that maybe some unwanted facial hair could be considered acceptable for a supplement that could do all of this….I have been taking it for four days now and so far no sign of any hair growth or acne and I feel really happy. I am just going to move on to a new obsession for awhile and worry about this in two years. Don’t worry I will continue to write about things that may or may not be happening. I am simply saying I have nothing to be upset about so I will no longer be spending my days feeling sorry for myself. The options are endless and I am only 29, I have many years to worry about how I am going to have a child.
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