"So How About You Impregnate Me Now" and Other Phrases to Avoid

I’ve decided to list the three most annoying parts (pardon the pun) in trying to get pregnant the scientific way. In no particular order….drum roll please….

1. Scheduled sex. It’s hilarious really. There’s nothing more romantic than feeling bloated from medication, weepy from out of whack hormones, and the pressure of knowing its now or never. We are not terribly busy people, but ovulation seems to not wait for mine, or his for that matter, libido. I caught myself saying, “So how about you impregnate me now?” It was cheesy, but forward. It reminded me of the line in America Pie “Do me beautiful.” I thought the comment might suffice, but not so much.

2.The effects of medication: I take Metformin and recently Clomid. The problem with Metformin: it makes your stomach swell up and well.... instead of morphing into a gorgeous specimen, one feels ready to pop. The relief--- gas. EWWWWWW! Girls are not supposed to fart….ick I just typed fart. I can’t even write about flatulence in an adult way. So compound the bloating with the fear of farting and love really isn’t on the brain. And don’t lie ladies….we’ve all been there before.Thus a phrase to never utter while trying to entice your man, "Excuse me, I tooted."

3. Post Coitus: After loving on your man you imagine cuddling and whispering Shakespearian-esque sweet nothings. Nope. Not us. I lay propped on pillows to help gravity…I lay for thirty minutes. I barely move begging for gravity to work in my favor. “Just keep swimming!” And for the love of St. Pete don’t sneeze! I need every one of those suckers! Thus, as I lay rigid unable to complain about the channel he is now watching, we just seem to sit there. Eventually, I move but not far, I’ve already prepped pajamas on the side of the bed.  Nothing kills the natural high intimacy brings like "I once knew a guy who said he hung his wife upside down to get pregnant" or "Shit! I just sneezed."

My final thought:

Everything I read says to let the process unfold itself organically. But how? It’s a process--- there’s nothing organic about process. A process implies a system. And our system needs tweaking for maximum efficacy and enjoyment. So I determined this is one part of my life that books can’t enter. I read about food, decorating, politics, fiction, movies, non-fiction…. I’ve flooded the engine with too much information. We can do this….no assembly required.

Put on your cozies, grab a gulp of something, and read. This one's a doozy!

Your Uterus Wants Health Care Reform:


One might wonder why a pregnancy hopeful would choose to post this. This....really? A political view on health care? This blog seems to have no business entertaining the political. I've rooted the entire basis of my blog as an insight into the incredibly personal trials of attempting to conceive. But health care reform is personal. Very personal. Women like you and me don't have a fighting chance under the current structure to have access to affordable assistance as we try to forge ahead in conception. We are cut off at the knees--- infertility care seems nonexistent for the insured and uninsured alike. Women, like you and me, are denied before we even get to the door. Suddenly the discussion for a couple gains in complexity. The topic shifts from the difficult "Can we?" to the unimaginable "Can we afford the cost to?"

Let me expound:
A year and a half ago my husband and I first faced this difficult quandary. According to my doctors at Kaiser I had exhausted all options for care for my PCOS and attempts to have a child. Both my internist and OB/GYN agreed I move to a more specialized facility. I couldn't understand. I had only seen the OB/GYN twice. How could he determine based off a normal pap and a short consultation he couldn't help me? I still don't understand.

I called the Franklin Center asking a million questions. If I was going to shell out serious dough I needed to have an idea what for. In short I discovered the following:

*The initial consultation=$500

*Length of consult= max.30 minutes

*Most of the consult= medical history, ordering of blood work (blood work I had done TWICE before)

*No exam of any kind

*Future appointments go up in cost

I called my internist. She assured me my PCOS exempted me from insurance exclusion but to what extent she didn't know. My infertility was caused by this condition--- the treatment I required for PCOS aligned with the same treatments for infertility. But alas, my insurance balked and my coverage remained inadequate.

We pushed hard on the brakes in our pursuit of parenthood. We convinced ourselves karma determined a quality life required no children. I called my brother to tell him to sell all the baby belongings he had saved for me. Chris and I weren't having kids because I could not ovulate and I could not afford the doctor willing to prescribe the medication to help my body participate in an important female function.

After moving to Washington we discovered a brief glimpse of hope. Clomid. Clomid was COVERED! All our bets are placed on a tiny white pill that only works if my tubes are open. Tubes I cannot afford to see if are open. It's a gamble with no gauranteed results and many sleepless nights wondering. Wondering if I will be able to tell the difference from raging hormones due to the Clomid or possible pregnancy? And if I get pregnant will this one make it?

And then I think how my desperate situation pales in comparison with other women facing issues much more grave than mine. My heart draws to ladies with no options if they miscarry-- will they sit in a shower for days like I did? All because they couldn't afford the care of a doctor during a time when proper care is critical. A women, her health, her fetus all vulnerable because care isn't available. And please don't tell me only poor women have no insurance. I have a respectable job teaching. But my insurance doesn't care how I educate the future doctors of America? I still hit a road block. I think of the devastation I've felt and I can't fathom that of someone with terminal illness.

So ladies, just as I implore you to see yourselves as strong women unbroken by the heartaches of womanhood, I urge you to see the pertinence in correcting the failures of health care. Yes, America has many flaws worth fixing, but this one touches on something simultaneously tangible and intangible. We need reform.
You, me, the chick at the bus stop have a say in how this goes. Years ago when women first marched for rights they weren't greeted with jubilation. Suffragettes and feminists faced jail time, social banishment, and worse while fighting for our basic rights. The fight hasn't stopped and it isn't exclusive to women--- this a human problem. One that requires great acts of humanity and bravery to challenge the status quo. We must care about health care reform so our children will never have to wonder if they can afford our medicine as we sit in our twilight years. So your daughter doesn't lose everything, her home, her car, all her possessions trying to find a means to pay her husband's medical bills after he died from cancer. It's a tragic picture....but it's happening.
I wrote my representatives yesterday and I replied to an email I received from Mitch Stewart. I had to...it was my civic duty for the preservation of a more insightful, hopeful America for my children. I may be cut off at the knees, but I certainly don't want my daughters to be.



Here is my email response:



Please please please ask our President to sell this issue to the public as a basic civil rights issue. I feel like this historical issue is my generation's Little Rock. (A pivotal moment in what would become a series of critical historic events in the furthering of civil rights.) Crowds berated The Little Rock Nine to keep schools segregated-- now we teach students in classrooms how those students exemplify bravery against the racist public and the intolerant popular beliefs. While health care reform seemingly has nothing to do with segregation-- the issues, the intolerance, the heated debate, and the pertinence of ending such a corrupt and maleficent system of thinking are absolutely parallel in nature.
Access to quality health care is a basic human right and to deny this right is immoral. Corporations can no longer run this country through the back rooms of Washington. My President must take a stand, deny financial backing from Goldman Sachs, and use his incredible ability to bring the common man and woman together to create a better America. In the 1950s and 60s many people couldn't imagine equal rights or fathom how the status quo was so morally and ethically wrong. I believe the case is the same today. Yesterday I saw a video at a rally where a man protesting the "tea baggers" was spat on, cursed at, and treated inhumanely-- I doubt those same people treat their dogs with such disdain. The man was elderly and suffering from Parkinson's disease. People threw money at him and berated him. Use this image to draw back to the Little Rock Nine as they walked through the Arkansas crowd, protected by soldiers, to be spat on, told they should die and go to hell, and so forth.
How can my countrymen re-enact such hate? Hate we reference in social studies classes to teach students the importance of citizenship and the meaning of the saying hanging in school cafeterias "What's popular isn't always right, and what's right isn't always popular." Hate Harper Lee so eloquently taught us in To Kill a Mockingbird is so pervasive that we must teach younger generations to not carry on such resentment and to recognize when to take a stand. Perhaps if the poor Mayella Ewell had access to health care after she had suffered abuse she would have not lied. Tom Robinson wouldn't have died? I know I'm just supposing here, but aren't there Mayella Ewell's everywhere in America right now. Some dying of cancer because they can't afford treatment, others protesting health reform since their daddies believe its wrong, and others like me who wonder how my family has suffered because the costs of care are astronomical.
Thus ends my request Mr. Stewart. Please ask my President, a man I so admire, to keep telling the American people we must halt injustice, learn from our past, and build a better tomorrow.


Thank you.
Regards,
Jessica Miller

OOOOOOH I forgot....

Girls--

If your trying here are the must haves according to my doctor:

Get a fertility calendar-- mark days and keep track diligently. Diligence is key because Clomid has to be taken at the exact right time in your cycle.(Cycle days 5 through 9).

Journal-- food and otherwise. Know where you stand in your diet and exercise. What you eat and how active you effects your fertility, especially if you have PCOS. Express your emotions....it isn't easy to cope with the ups and downs of trying to get pregnant; journaling helps ease the pain and serves as a coping skill.

Stop smoking! Smoking isn't good for you and your body knows it. So your body doesn't feel like pregnancy is a good option for you. As well, when you get pregnant you don't have to worry about the stress of quitting because you already have!

Take a prenatal vitamin now and add Folic acid to your vitamin regimen.

Reduce your drinking (no more drunken nights at the neighbors). Alcohol doesn't help with weight loss, nor would it be good if you conceived and didn't know it.

Next Steps: pop some pills, make some babies. Maybe?

Good Morning Gals!

Yesterday I slept about two hours-- I kept thinking we'd go to the doctor and find out Chris' sperm was nothing but duds. In my experience, doctors have always shared test results over the phone;thus, I expected my OB/GYN would easily share Chris comes from a long line of studly breeding capabilities. At least that's what he (Chris) told me. But last week when I called to have the results explained the nurse replied coolly,"Dr. So-So (I never asked if I could use her name publicly)would like to discuss the results in person."

My stomach dropped into my toes and took a full week to return to my ample mid-section. So for a week I sat twiddling my thumbs wondering if we both were contributing to the fertility problem. But the torture was fleeting. Yesterday as we sat for the first time together in the OB/GYN's office, Chris learned his proclamation was true-- his swimmers are fine. Me on the other hand...

As I sat comfortably in the stir-ups (I shouldn't be so relaxed about it I know), I couldn't help but thinking, maybe today she'll poke up there and miracle of miracles "You're pregnant!" Like in the movies right? But alas, my annual finished with little event and I was sent packing.

But for the first time at the beginning of the appointment I realized how Chris and I are truly on the same page with this. He asked more questions than me, wrote stuff down and took note of little things that I seemed to let float by. The doctor congratulated us for being a team on this--- I think she didn't give the results over the phone just to make sure my husband was in the picture too. His presence in the room seemed to give her more comfort than he afforded me.

But here's the hope after yesterday:

I will start taking Clomid, a drug designed to trick your brain to tell your body ovulate. I will take this medication for three months. I take the "progesterone test" each month and on cycle day 5 I take the Clomid until cycle day 9. I count the days until the next time I should expect a period-- no period take a pregnancy test. Not pregnant. Start the process again. The hope is in that three month period I conceive. If there's no such luck then I go back to discuss more invasive and non-health insurance covered care. In that case our quest stops. Both Chris and I decided we can't afford to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for those procedures at this point in our lives. It sickens me to think of the money and anguish couples go through due to the high costs of infertility care. But that's for another blog entry.

So now you are all updated on the progress. Keep your fingers crossed....I know I am.