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.

New Office (and New Bird Room)

This month's project has been moving the birds back into their own room because it proved impossible for Miran to work at home while sharing a room with them. Everytime he got on a conference call they would start making noise. 

So we put them into what was my office and our very informal guest room. We moved the cage stand with storage that we had already built and made a matching table top play area for them on the other side of the room. You can see they have already moved right in and made quite a mess!

So the original master bedroom as been turned into a new guest room and office. For our work space, we moved my desk in and set up a nice face to face double work area and got a bookcase with storage to hide our mess of cables and our legs. 

As you can see we still need to get new office chairs that match (plus Miran's has holes in it and I'm using one of our dining chairs). And I've done a lot of touch up painting, but there is a little bit of wall repair left to be done behind Miran's desk. And I've got to hang some pictures up on the walls.

The other side of the room is more complete though. We now have a nice sitting area  and this couch opens up to a queen size bed so our guests don't have to sleep on a mattress on the floor anymore. Everyone wins! 

One fun feature is our lifttop coffee table, which we can use to work (or eat) in the sitting area of our new office. And finally, with Dad's help last week-end we installed a new ceiling fan.

Blowing Rock

We spent the week-end with Matthew and Lindsay, who drove up to our house Friday night. Then we all headed up to the mountains for a fun filled overnight.

We drove up to the top of Grandfather Mountain and Matthew, Lindsay and I crossed over the mile high bridge and climbed on the rocks for the impressive view. The heights proved too much for Miran who waited for us in the gift shop. It was very windy and we were all a little nervous and not very sure footed. The weather was actually great all week-end, but it was quite chilly on the mountain top.

On Sunday Matthew spent the day skiing, which was the primary purpose of the trip. The rest of us kept busy by going on a short hike and by panning for gemstones. Below you can see Lindsay and Miran sifting through their buckets of dirt. And below that you can see what Miran found (in a large bucket) and what I found (in a small bucket). They had staff who went through our findings and identified everything. 

After identifying everything we decided to have a couple of the stones cut, including a not very valuable but pretty amazonite as well as a ruby and a amethyst. The ruby turned out a bit dull, but the amethyst is really lovely.

We explored the very close together towns of Blowing Rock, Boone, and Banner Elk and discovered a number of fudge shops, which seemed to be a thing in the area. We had great burgers for dinner Saturday as well.