Next steps

I read an article about allowing yourself to grieve over your infertility. The part that made me laugh (dark humour) was that infertile couples will often seek out hobbies like gardening, crafts, or exercise to get their minds off their infertility. I have an AMAZING garden full of tomatoes, peppers, and jalapenos this year. I  took up crocheting again after a 20 year hiatus and made an afghan, a sweater, and a touque. And I can run 2.5 miles now!

We met with our doctor at the Heartland Fertility Clinic about a month ago. The results normal again. So the  suspicion is that the embryo can't implant or if it does, it's rejected by my body. His recommendation was for ICSI, intra-cellular sperm injection, along with IVF. It's a more complicated and more expensive procedure than standard IVF, but if the embryo is rejected if it does implant, then we pay $12,000 for a miscarriage? Thanks but no. He tried to convince us to sign up for the procedure but it wasn't much of a sales pitch. "Well, you can. If you want. You can try. I mean, you're both still young and healthy. It might work. It could, you know.... uhh...."
Both of us got the feeling that he was eyeing our Mastercard and figuring out how many payments on his Lexus he could make from us.

We were supposed to register for counselling at the front desk (huh?), but since he'd made us wait an hour past our appointment time and the secretary had left for lunch, we left too and had lunch at Tony Roma's. The only time we go to Tony Roma's is after an appointment and disappointment at Heartland Clinic.

Knowing that pregnancy isn't in our future, we went to an information night at Adoption Options and are scheduled to have a meeting with their staff next month, followed by a 3-day information session in November. Adoption is a very complicated process and there are two "divisions": Division 1 is with provincial Child and Family Services, Division 2 is with Adoption Options. We're going to start a Division 2 file first, and if the process isn't too horrific, we might consider opening a Division 1 file later. Of course, the paperwork for both Divisions can't be shared so  we have to do things (and pay for it) twice. At any rate, the next few months will be spent putting together our file, medical checks, credit reports, background checks, criminal records checks, home visits and a lot of waiting.... waiting...waiting....

Of Porcupines and Swamp Water

The Letrozole (aka Femera) that I was taking is supposedly most effective in the second and third month. It's now the fifth month. Although it's not working (obviously), I can happily say I also don't have the horrific side effects I read about on TheBump.com. The hot flashes, night terrors, vomiting, body aches that I read about were just that... their stories. I've been fortunate that I don't get sick every month from taking those pills, but unfortunate that it didn't do anything to help get me pregnant.

I've read about acupuncture and decided after the 2nd month of Letrozole not working, to augment my hormone treatments with 3 times a week acupuncture. I found one place that came recommended from a friend with MS who swears by Dr Liu at Eastern Healing Centre. My friend doesn`t suffer fools gladly and has a BS meter much stronger than I do, so I trust her judgement. Dr Liu is a very compassionate TCM doctor and diagnosed my liver as too hot, my uterus as too cold and my spleen as lacking nourishment. Also, I have a weak pulse and my tongue "film" is sparse. Huh....

Okay, so I have to suspend all my medical education, all my beliefs in conventional medicine, all my pre-conceived notions about what is or might be our fertility problems, and put some trust in Dr Liu's techniques. For placebo effect to kick in, you have to commit mentally that *this will work*. Blue pills are more effective than red ones. Or at least, I had to convince myself (and B) "what's the worst that could happen?" That's why it's called "alternative medicine", but with 1 billion people in China and reproductive restrictions, maybe they're onto something? Besides, if it doesn't work, we're in the same child-less state that we're in now so I didn't see it as potentially harmful....

Three times a week for two and a half months, I paid Dr Liu $45 to look like this....

The living porcupine

On the upside, I did get a lot of reading done. After getting poked in 13 different locations (the qi spots for my ovaries and anxiety spots couldn't be photographed easily), I would read my Kindle for a half hour as the acupuncture "worked it's magic". Nothing more relaxing that reading a good zombie book while my toes twitched sporadically.

And then there's the pills. Little, stinky, brown mystery pills. 104 pills a day, every day for 21 days. I haven't got the foggiest clue what any of them are or what they do. Unlike the Letrozole, which gave me zero side effects, the combination of these pills left me so depressed and anxious that I spent a lot of time trying not to cry or have panic attacks or go completely bat-shit crazy on poor Brendon. They made me want to crawl in our spare room and curl up into a ball, jam my fingers in my ears and scream. And yeah, there's some irony that I was more anxious and depressed while taking herbal anti-anxiety pills. 

40 pills per envelope, 2 envelopes per day

8 pills twice daily

8 pills three times daily

Plus the tea. The stinking, rotten concoction that makes the Red River look pristine and potable. "Just" for the days leading up to and including ovulation. It's a mysterious steaming swamp water from 12 different packages of herbs and roots and probably some ground melamine and panda penis for good order. I had to mix it and drink it after breakfast each day. It made me wretch and gag each time I had to take ingest it. My office stunk so badly during those days. The instructions that came with it recommended adding as little or as much boiling water as you can chug in three gulps (because your body will fight you if you attempt a 4th gulp) and that adding honey or sugar won't help it taste any better. It burned all the way through me, and just added to the miserable feeling this whole ordeal was causing. 

But with Brendon's recent 'Work Force Adjustment' into the world of the unemployed and my Blue Cross only covering the equivalent to 9 treatments, we don't have the money to continue the acupuncture. It worked out to over $1000 a month when you factor in the cost of herbs. I told Dr Liu how the herbs were affecting me but she just said it's my body normalizing. If this is what "normal" people feel like, I think I'll stick with my abnormal self. I may be weird, but I'm happy and embrace my weirdness.

I took another month's worth of Letrozole but I'll probably stop that as well. It's a bad time for me to get pregnant, if indeed it were possible, since we don't know how long Brendon will be job hunting. And even if he finds something right away, he won't be able to take extended paternity leave and we need my full salary to keep the house. We have an appointment with Heartland Fertility Clinic in June but we're guessing the recommendation will be to move onto IVF, but at $12,000 a month, we don't have the money to even attempt 1 round. Adoption is $10,000 or more so that option is off the table as well.

Thus ends our attempt at becoming parents. Not with a baby, but with a whimper. And if I thought I felt depressed while I was on the herbs, the realization that we can't afford to do anything more that'll make us parents is even worse. 

So Long 2011!!

2011 was supposed to be the 'and baby makes 3' year. Just like in science, theory and reality don't often meet. We found out in March, after my exploratory surgery, that we're part of the rare 5% of infertile couples that have 'infertility of unknown etiology', which is the I-paid-a-lot-to-go-to-med-school way giving us a big ol' shrug o'dumb
and sending us on our merry, albeit childless, way with a referal to Heartland Clinic. We're starting the first type of fertility treatments (Letrozol, for those in the same situation) in January. *fingers crossed* *pray for us* *burn incense and chicken bones and chant to a fertility goddess for us*

Since our world wasn't being shaken up by a stork, NRC decided on a restructuring plan that saw me leave my job of 12 years as a tech at IBD and start fresh at CancerCare. When I saw who else was being "work force adjusted" into unemployment, I got the feeling that I'd be next. A feeling that was confirmed at my exit interview when the DG said "your unique skill set (government-ese for "we're not sure what you do here so therefore, you're uniquely skilled to do that thing you've been doing for a long long time") wouldn't be needed here much longer." When a position at CancerCare opened up, I applied, had a good interview, and left IBD. That was a really tough decision because B still works there, my friends are still there, I was really comfortable with my job and knew how to run magnets, my boss was AWESOME, I knew where things are and who to talk to about them - to go into a lab that doesn't have a single magnet in sight, doing weird blots and spinning disk microscopy, having to understand new acronyms (CCMB, PTMs, HER2s, BNIP, etc).... It's been 6 months of feeling completely overwhelmed and really dumb, but I'm settling in. I'm still overwhelmed and feel dumb, but at least I know where the copier paper is stored!

It wasn't even just leaving IBD that was hard, it was leaving the lab that was the hardest. Watching everyone else pipette and dilute and section, stuff I LOVED to do, and instead, going to endless meetings to discuss leverage potentials, trying to find someone competant at CIHR (a work in progress), or fighting with ResearchNet to *not* crash on the day a grant is due... Well, it's tough but it's also different, the people are great, and I really hope to be there for a long long time.

We'll see what happens in 2012! Hoping you guys have a Happy New Year's!!

Memories of 9/11...

I can't believe it's been 10 years since 9/11. I hate to sound cliched, but it really does seem like yesterday. Perhaps it's because footage of the towers collapsing, soldiers in beige being deployed, and constant reminders of "Muslim terrorists" (because no one remembers or admits that there are Christian terrorists) and ever increasing, less effective airport security. And with this weekend being the 10 year anniversary, I thought it'd be interesting to find out what people remember from *That Day*.
As remember that morning, I was eating my usual bowl of Cheerios while watching Breakfast Television on A-Channel with Jon Ljungberg broadcasting from the Pancake House at the Forks. He and the guest chef were making waffles with cinnamon apple sauce and whipped cream. I looked at my pathetic bowl of Cheerios with utter disdain. Watching Jon ruin waffles but covering his mistakes in heaps of gooey steaming apple cinnamon and whipped cream, mmmmm. I shut off the tv and ran down the 7 flights of stairs to Kathy's apartment so we could, as we always did, walk to work together... laughing and joking about wanting waffles now. We got to work, she headed upstairs to her top floor corner office, I headed to the new computer lab. My "To Do" list was to uninstall Windows XP and reinstall Windows 2000 because NRC hadn't cleared XP to be rolled out to all NRC computers yet. Once the new-old operating system was installed, I got to test out a demo of Office 2000 on these new computers!!

*As a complete aside and unrelated to 9/11, that year, my boss had come back from a conference with a 128kb mem stick. It was the size of a iPod is now and cost nearly $200USD. That's neither here nor there, but after having a high school student working with me all summer, I'm starting to realize I'm old and technology hasn't changed A LOT in 10 years. Anyways, back to my story...*

Shortly after formatting the 500Mb hard drive that cost me nearly half my annual IT budget to buy them, our Facilities Manager with the Napoleonic complex came over the PA system and said, "We are streaming the news in the Herzberg room if you would like to watch. Understandably, network access is slow."

I email Kathy with a descriptive "WTF?" email so we agree to meet downstairs. We arrived at the Herzberg room moments before the second tower was hit. It was an unreal experience to stand there, hot chocolate in hand, giggling and laughing as we always do when we're together to turn and see the tower get hit. I remember going cold instantly and just saying, "Guess that means America's at war now."
Kathy answers "Yeah, but with who?"
I recall her saying "This seems like one of those times that Bruce Willis is going to pop out any minute and save the day."
Yeah!? Where was Jeremy Irons with a German accent as authentic as Mel Gibson's brogue in "Braveheart"?
It really did seem like this was some unbelievable Hollywood movie, that people weren't really being burned alive or jumping from windows, two more planes weren't getting hijacked, the Pentagon lost a wall. (.... or did it... conspiracy theorists have loads of ideas to the contrary about the Pentagon crashes)

We just stood there for over an hour watching the news feed until the first tower fell. I couldn't handle much more so I went back to my computers, numb and cold and feeling sick. Maybe watching the progression bar of Windows installer made my world seem normal. Maybe being in a silent, windowless room by myself would make the events go away, or stop, or even realize that it's a big hoax.

As often as I could, I would try to get online for updates or go to the Herzberg room to see the latest news. I would spend the next 2 days completely obsessed with anything relating to the events of that day; staying up late, getting up early, just to find out any updates.

What about you? What are your memories?

Thoughts from our side of the city - redux

Six months ago, I blogged about my first impressions on living in Transcona. I think it's time to re-address some of the issues. Yes people still don't know where it is, no there aren't any pink flamingos, however there are some changes in this part of the city that I see as a step in the right direction.
1) Lack of coffee shops.
As previously mentioned, there aren't any coffee shops in T-cona unless you count the lone Starbucks on Regent Ave. That in itself is weird, having only 1 Starbucks store in a 10 km radius but I've also discovered that down the street from me is going to be a "gourmet coffee and tea shop" opening soon at the corner of Plessis and Grassie. The location is terrible but I'm looking forward to having somewhere to go for coffee if/when my "other side of the city" friends grace me with their presence.
2) "Downtown" Transcona.
Again, I wrote about how weird it is to hear people refer to "going downtown" meaning that they're driving 5 minutes east on Regent Ave. But our city councillor and the local Transcona Biz are trying to revive The Downtown to make it more attractive for pedestrians and patios. If Corydon is Little Italy, this would be what, little Ukraine?? Perogies instead of gelatti? Anyways, they tore down a dilapidated building before the firebugs could get to it, and are creating a green space called the "Centennial Square". Okay, so it's actually a circle, but it's such a rarity to have a green space these days that I'll skip the semantics / geometry debate. Also opening in The Downtown, a COFFEE SHOP!! This one is being run by L'Arche, a local organization that helps special needs adults find meaningful employment, so in addition to being a coffee shop, it helps people too!! Double karma points.
3) Speaking of green spaces, the new Transcona Trails.
I'm not giving any credit to Harper or Katz, but the city managed to get infrastructure money out of the feds and paved 5km of trails running the entire length of T-cona and connected it to existing trails that starts near our house. I think it's brilliant! Every time we use it or drive past it on the way to/from work, there's always people blading or biking past. It's not often that the city does something right AND promotes a healthy lifestyle but this is one of those rare examples.
4) Community Centres.
I think there are more community centres per capita in Transcona than any other part of the city. But they were all built at the same time, so they're all about 40 years old and falling apart. However, they're renovating the one nearest to us to become a Wellness Institute and are proposing to tear down an old community centre to make it into a huge YMCA. As expected, there's a small but vocal group opposing any changes to "their" centre, insisting that some paint is enough of an improvement. *sigh*

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Apparently, I've been negligent in keeping my blog posts up to date and there are some readers that rely on it for entertainment over their lunch break. Ooooh, the pressure!! And given how many things have happened last month, maybe it's time to put it online for your amusement.

There's a new president of the NRC and his entire role, best as I can figure, is to eliminate and destroy 100+ years of Canadian scientific accomplishment in the name of progress and competitiveness. Yes, I'm choosing my words carefully, for good reason, but I give the NRC 5 years (coinciding with the end of this president's term) before it's gone and the thousands of technicians and scientists are left unemployed and taking their skills elsewhere (re:out of Canada). Because that'll make Canada more competitive in science. *snort*

Anyways, off my soap box. After losing 10% of IBD's staff in the first round of cuts, I saw the writing on the wall. A position opened up at CancerCare Manitoba and I took the opportunity and decided to leave before I could get cut. In my exit interviews, I was told that it's good I'm leaving because my "unique skill set" (re: whatever it is that you do, besides look after the coffee machine) wouldn't be needed much longer. And for an institute that millions in the hole, me quitting is a heckuva lot cheaper than firing me.

I had 4 days between jobs and, as Brendon well knows, leaving me alone in the house for more than a day guarantees that something is going to be painted. And if there's something that needed painting, it's our bedroom. As Oprah hath bequeathed, so therefore it hath be true, a bedroom should be sanctuary and should only be used for two things. And one of those is sleeping ;-) The bedroom was a horrible yellow colour. It's more yellow than margarine but not really lemon yellow. It's like a faded Post-It note. Sanctuary? Nope, it's like old office supplies! *That* does not inspire that other use of a bedroom (the not sleeping one) if you're remind of being at work. Brendon started by repainting the back wall before we moved in last year. Leaving us with this.

Meh. Well, it left me unsatisfied. Nothing worse than an unsatisfied wife in the bedroom right right?? LOL! Still bland and still "faded Post-it note" yellow, but without the sponged back wall. Worse yet, the yellow wasn't evenly painted, so you could still see the roller marks and dry wall tape in some spots?! With Brendon at work, I got out my ipod, my brushes, and my painter's tape and got started.... :)

Ta DAHHHHH!!

Okay, so it's beige. Again. Like 95% of the rest of the house, it's a combination of beige and brown. Technically, it's Behr "Castle path", and that's in the grey/red category but it's a variation of beige. But it's not yellow!! So that's the bedroom finished. Well, for now... until I insist we replace the carpets, heh heh.

Meanwhile, I still had 2 more days to myself and I was out of paint. To make a long story short, this 3 yards of soil...

became this... (Brendon and I had built the flower beds and 2 boxes ahead of time)



which has grown into this...



60 square feet of boxes is now growing 2 types of tomatoes, green peppers, zucchini, beans, peas, garlic, onions, lettuce, potatoes and carrots. The flower beds are a mix of annuals (sunflowers, zinnias and celosia) and perinneals (digitalis, daisies, echinacea and a few others I can't recall their names but the red ones in the front of the picture).


Oh yeah, and I got a new car. Sexy sexy!!

En suite is finally done!

I've already posted about how much I hated the en suite and how everything in it was white: floors, walls, cabinets, fixtures etc. Here's the pic from the Kijiji ad when we first looked at the house.
So in August, I painted the cabinets. In October, it was the walls.
Last step was the flooring and thanks to my fantastic incredible father-in-law, my ultrafantastic truly amazing husband and 6 hours of a Saturday we'll never get back, here's the final result!!
*BLISS*!!!!
We used Allure tiles from Home Depot. It's a floating floor so there's no adhesive, just two sides that stick together using contact cement. Isn't it beautiful??? *sigh* I'm going to go admire our work again... happy happy!!!