Distracting Oursevles

We've been keeping busy the past few days to not dwell on how our embryos are doing. And really this post is about miscellaneous things we (mostly Miran) have been up to the past few weeks in general.

We had brunch the other day with our friends Angela and Sri, with whom I talked while Miran played with their daughter Ava for an hour.

He also planted some veggies this year - but didn't overdo as we tend to do: just a few peppers and a few tomatoes and one zucchini plant. 

We also planted some flowering plants yesterday around our sitting area / fire pit, but we are only half done with that project so I'll wait to post pictures until it looks a little better!

He has been practicing making mojitos at home in memory of last week end in Miami.

And finally, Miran got himself a new toy recently as well, which he has been having fun with in the yard. Its a remote control helicopter / drone. Here he is flying it pretty well in the back yard. The battery only lasts about 7 minutes (so he immediately ordered 5 extras) so you have to keep it close.

The funnest part about the drone is that is has a camera. Here is the very first video. Its pretty funny, especially if you make it to the end ...

Nerve-racking News

The lab at REACH (our clinic in Charlotte) called with an update on our embryos. Of our 6 eggs, 4 survived the thaw, and 2 fertilized. So we at this point we have 2 embryos.

Dr. Teaff said she typically gets 2 or sometimes 3 out of 6 eggs, so on the one had we are right on track, but at the same time, I'm nervous and a little disappointed because just because we have 2 today doesn't mean we'll have 2 well-developed ones on Wednesday for the transfer.

Fingers crossed.

Third Phase

I had some more labwork and an ultrasound this morning to check on the progress of everything and we are still right on track for the transfer next Wedneday

So I start three new medications tonight, including progesterone injections, as well as go in for an intralipid infusion tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is also the egg thaw / embryo making day so we will be anxiously awaiting news over the week-end as to how many survive and look good.

Things are picking up fast now - today and tomorrow are the most complicated in terms of number of medications, and I go in again Monday morning for labs again. I made and have been following a calendar chart to keep track of everything - here is detail view:

Miami Beach!

We took a long week-end getaway trip to Miami Beach for Memorial Day to have a little break after a particularly stressful spring and also hopefully as a last hurray before hopefully I'm pregnant.

We got a nice package deal that include a rental car, but after a traffic jam between the airport and our hotel, crazy road closures in Miami Beach that made getting to our hot difficult, and a very expensive parking charge at our hotel we thought maybe it was more trouble than it was worth. So the first day we returned it to a place within walking distance of our hotel.

Here was the ride in - notice the "Welcome to Miami" sign!

Here is our hotel as well as views from our balcony towards the Atlantic and from the elevator lobby across Miami Beach towards Miami proper.

We slept a little later each morning, had breakfast, and then spent a few hours on the beach. The hotel had nice padded chairs for guests, and we rented an umbrella each day. They brought us free towels, water, and fruit and had guys coming around from which you could order additional food and drinks. The water was incredibly warm and clear and we swam and sat and swam and sat a few times each day.

There is a very touristy shopping and restaurant street called Lincoln Road that was very near our hotel and we spent a lot of time walking and eating there. Here is the imfamous sunburn photo (I promise it was never as bad as this picture makes it look, as you can see in the other pictures. There was also a really cool tree on this street we admired each day.

There was another, shorter pedestrian street with restaurants where we had dinner another night. It was very pretty with lights in the trees and lots of cafe tables on the sidewalks.

There were a couple specific places we remembered from when we were in Miami with our friends Goran and Dijana a few years ago for New Years - including a Nespresso coffee shop and an ice cream parlor called Paul.

Finally, on the last night we rented bikes and took a ride along the lovely esplanade along the coast. Its been awhile since I've been on a bike, but it was really fun.

Farewell Passat!

Last night we sold our Passat, which has had an oil problem for a few years that go so bad two months ago the car really wasn't reliable enough to drive. Until school ended I didn't have time to get it cleaned up nice enough to sell, but once I did and got it posted on Craig's List, I got a lot of inquiries and a couple people came to look at it. We got $800, which we thought was pretty good considering.

Here it is in its Craig's List glamor shot (holding up pretty nicely):

It served us (and Azra) well for over ten years. Here we are with it the day we got it in 2004 (we all look a litter fresher a decade ago!):

Second Phase

I had some lab work and an ultrasound done today and everything looks exactly how it was supposed to. So we move into the second phase of the medical protocol, which means I start taking estrogen on top of the three things I'm already on. I do this for about two weeks until the next check in for labs on the 28th. At this point I've picked up or had delivered all but one of the drugs I'll need - and have gotten stuff from four different pharmacies. At this point I've got quite a pharmacy set up in my own bathroom:

Haircut

In other random news, I hacked off my hair last week. I don't think its been this short since high school. It wasn't completely premeditated, though I did of course schedule the hair appointment. But I told her I wanted something fresh for summer. I'm still playing with how it looks straightened versus natural and fortunately like it both ways. I'm still getting used to it and get suprised whenever I pass a mirror.

Trying Again

Most of you already know we are planning to try again with another round of IVF, but I wanted to add a blog post update about the situation to get it on the record and so updates makes sense as we make it through the procedure.

We decided to suck it up and try in the US even though it is significantly more expensive than what we were paying in the Czech Republic. But my clinic in Charlotte has much better success rates and my doctor is one of the best in the region so we are hoping it proves worth it. We've already discover the medical protocol is more elaborate - with more medication - so hopefully more turns out to be better.

But let me back up because we've been working on this for a few weeks. The first step (and prerequisite for doing this here) was being approved into the ATTAIN Refund Program. This means we will pay a flat rate to this company that will then pay for up three fresh transfers and unlimited frozen transfers until we take home a baby. If after all those tries we don't have a baby, we get our money back. But if we get a baby on the first try, we've overpaid.

Once we were accepted into ATTAIN, we took out a $30,000 medical loan and sent the funds to them. The third step was getting set up with the egg donor bank with which we decided to work. Again, we opted for the egg bank because it kept the out of pocket costs down (comes out of what we've already paid ATTAIN) and is easier for scheduling and budgeting.

So then we selected a donor from their database, which turned out to be a cut throat competitive process. We really studied all the profiles and narrowed the list down to about seven, which we both then ranked through our own separate and complicated systems.  The factors we focused on were appearance, height, personality, and family medical history. The later was weighted more heavily in both our systems as we agreed that was really the most important thing to worry about. We both selected the same girl as number one, which was good because we were opposite on our feelings about all the others. So we requested her and were initially told we were too late, but than she became available again the next day because it turned out she had produced so many eggs that her lot could be split between two couples. So we felt this was a double good sign - both that we got our first choice donor and that hopefully her ability to produce lots of eggs means they are good ones.

So the six eggs are being shipped from the egg bank in Atlanta to our clinic. In the meantime I started the preparatory medications last Thursday, May 7 and we have a transfer date set for June 3. Obviously that might move as we move through the protocol, but hopefully will work fine. The first medications I've started include Lupron and Prednisone. The Prednisone pill is supposed to help my body not reject the implantation because apparently sometimes the uterus thinks the embryo is an infection - I guess I'll keep taking it all month. I'm not sure when I stop. The Lupron is an injection that Miran has been helping to administer. It is supposed to suppress ovulation to make sure I don't randomly ovulate this month and complicate things. Later this week I'll start on the estrogen and then add in the progesterone a few days before the transfer. There is other stuff thrown in as well - including steroid shots and antibiotics and more.

I also started going to acupuncture again a few weeks ago and am happy I'll finally be able to really use that to support the process and procedure. I went in the weeks before each of the transfers in the Czech Republic, but this time it will be more closely synchronized and I can go the morning before the transfer happens which is supposed to help with blood flow and encourage implantation.

So overall we are feeling cautiously optimistic. We are basically doing the same thing we already tried, but enough things have changed - the doctor, the donor, the medicines, the number of fresh embryos that will be transferred etc. - that we are hopeful we will get different results this time.

I'll keep everyone posted here on the blog!

Busy Spring

A lot has been going on around here, but blogging has not been part of it all. I'm going to fill in a few back posts for trips for the past few months, but this is a quick overview of the Spring we've had.

Miran has been hosting archery gatherings. He and Heather are the two experts and they have talked Aspen and Jeff into buying bows as well and they all get together either at our house or Heather's and practice. These shots are from a shooting get together in March, I think.

Cars have been a big theme of the past month and a half. First the Passat died. We still haven't gotten rid of the Passat because I haven't had time to wash it and take pictures and postit on Craig's List. We hope someone will be interested in buying it for parts and we can at least get a few hundred for it. But we did have to hurry and get a new car for Azra Here she is posing with the new-to-us Acura.

Soon after the Passat's not-so-surprising death, Miran's TT failed the state inspection and the bill to fix what need proved fairly close to the value of the car itself. So we haven't fixed it yet. I think the plan is to try to get a cheaper estimate and fix it over the summer and then try to sell it for a little more and upgrade before it is worthless like the Passat.

Then someone rear-ended me at an intersection. Taking pictures of the damage proved difficult. The whole back was out of plane and nothing lined up, but it was subtle and doesn't show in the pictures. The one below shows the bumper loose and is the clearest shot of the damage. The other driver's insurance was great and fixed the whole back pretty quickly - the whole back gate and bumper had to be replaced. The damage totaled about $2500, but of course I didn't have to pay.