The guy who stumbled in here based on this search result is going to have to get used to dealing with his disappointment, I think.
Month: April 2006
Grey matters
I have always vowed to age gracefully, and naturally. It’s been fairly easy; I come from people who generally age with grace. I still have clear skin, and I can pass my few wrinkles off as laugh lines.
So no collagen to pucker withered lips; no botox for these laugh lines; no tucks to breath new life into deflated breasts. I admire women like Susan Sarandon, and Meryl Streep. Women who wear their years with honour and pride. And I have kept my resolution to age naturally, and gracefully, all the way to the tender age of 36.
You see, I’ve become a plucker.
In theory, I had no issue with grey hair. I always thought a thick white streak was kind of sexy, in a funky kind of way. Hey, even überfashionista Stacey on What Not to Wear has some lovely grey streaks tucked behind her ears – it must be hot.
I’ve never coloured my hair – not even highlights. It’s a lovely chestnut colour, with a good dose of coppery highlights when the light is right. And chestnut, it seems, is a perfect foil for grey.
It has begun. The invasion of the colourless follicles.
I frankly don’t know where they keep coming from. I’ve become a grey-hair stalker, combing methodically through my chestnut locks in search of grey traitors in much the same way I imagine a mother examines her child’s head for nits. And when I do find one, I carefully separate it from the herd before yanking it unceremoniously out by the roots, at which point I feel obligated to inspect it carefully from all angles.
Grey hair is quite a bit coarser than its darkly youthful cousin. I wonder why?
And yet, despite this careful weeding of my tresses, I still manage to find long strands of it shining defiantly and weedlike in the garden of my head. (Hey, look, that line may qualify me for some sort of bad writing award, don’t you think?)
Why, by the way, are there never any strands that are half grey? They are all uniformly grey from root to end. I’ve put a lot of time into this obsession, you might be beginning to notice.
My scalp is still tingling with the last violent uprootal, observed and snatched from my scalp while I was overseeing nightly toothbrushing. I’m beginning to wonder which is less appealing, healthy chunks of grey hair or patchy spots of bald head, plucked clean as a naked chicken.
It’s a tough call…
So tell me, my fellow women-of-a-certain-age (and men, too!), to what lengths would you – do you – go to minimize the effects of aging? Hair dye? Anti-aging cream? Nip and tuck?
Three is the New Two
We’ve just come back from our consultation with our reproductive endocrinologist (RE), aka our fertility doctor, to discuss what we’re going to do with our frostie.
(For those of you new to the conversation, we have a single frozen embryo, our ‘frostie’, left over from the IVF that resulted in Tristan.)
First, the facts: the frostie has an approximately 75% chance of surviving the thaw. (This is much higher than I thought.) Then, given my age at the time of conception, there is a 13 to 15 % chance of the embryo transfer leading to a successful pregnancy. (This is much lower than I thought.) And I don’t know if this is reflected in the percentages or not, but the doctor said that embryos that were created in the same cycle that also led to a successful pregnancy have a better chance than those that were created during a cycle that did not lead to a pregnancy.
The minute I saw those numbers on paper, because the RE has this habit of writing down what she says, I wanted this embryo – this baby – fiercely, without ambivalence, and with my whole heart.
So many thoughts, so many feelings, so much to say… bear with me, this may be my least coherent, least linear post ever.
More details. Facts are my friends.
I will do this as a non-medicated cycle. Because there is no waiting list for frozen embryo transfers (FET) right now, I can call the clinic any time after June 1 to inform them it’s the first day of my cycle. From there, we do a month-long ‘test cycle’. I go in for blood work to check my estrogen level some time just before I ovulate, and go in for an ultrasound around the same time to make sure my uterine lining is nice and thick. Four days after ovulation, I go back in for more blood work to check my progesterone levels. Assuming the hormone and lining measurements are within the right range, the next cycle will be the one that counts.
For that cycle, I think I also do an estrogen check, and I’ll use an at-home ovulation predictor kit to detect the surge in luteinizing hormone (LH) that indicates ovulation is about to occur. Three days later, they thaw the frostie early in the morning, and the embryo will (assuming the odds are with us) be transferred into my uterus later that morning.
No drugs, no waiting – just a cheque for $1500, and more hope and vulnerability and anxiety than I can stand…
And now we roam from the factual to the esoteric. Here’s a few more details that are flavouring my emotional soup.
The clinic is moving in two weeks, to be a private stand-alone clinic instead of being part of the Ottawa Hospital. A sidebar note for those of you who have cycled at the Parkdale clinic: when we went through our IUIs and IVF, I remember being upset that patients waiting for an ultrasound as part of their fertility treatments had to share the waiting room and ultrasound facilities with the high-risk obstetrical unit. It was horribly painful to see those beautiful, fat bellies in the depth of my own doubt and sorrow and fear.
Did you know that the hospital administration recently dismantled the 5th floor ultrasound clinic entirely, making it necessary for patients to go all the way into the hospital proper and to the LABOUR AND DELIVERY ward to have any ultrasounds done? Can you imagine? Even for someone like me, who rarely grudged someone their successful pregnancies or beautiful children, who never faced the pain of an unsuccessful IVF or worse, a treatment that went to hell right in the middle, couldn’t have faced going to the L&D ward and hearing and seeing all those brand new babies every second day at the most crucial part of a cycle. Unbelievable. The RE said that was one of the main factors that led to the decision to be a standalone clinic.
Anyway, back to me. Because it’s all about me, isn’t it? The clinic moving shouldn’t have much of an impact on me and our cycle, except that the new location is a little bit closer to home, and a lot more convenient to get to, and to park at. This, to my view, is a tick in the “the universe wants this to happen†column. (I’m all about what the universe wants right now. It’s how I’m dealing with the whole thing, on an emotional level. If the universe, or God, or Fate, or whatever else you want to call it, wants this abstract concept of a frostie to become an actual living person, via me and my comfortable uterus, then so be it. And if the universe, in its ultimate wisdom, doesn’t think that a third child is in our best interests… well, I’m a little bit too emotionally invested in the concept right at this moment to consider that alternative. But you get the drift.)
And then the RE was telling us how a big collective of obstetricians, including mine, are moving from the building next door to the clinic to a medical centre about 10 kms in a direct line closer to my house, which would be extremely convenient – if I happened to get pregnant. Which really must be the universe trying to tell me something, right?
(Do you get the feeling it’s going to be a long couple of months? Yah, me too.)
So that’s where we are. In the “more than you really needed to know†file, (and yes, that file will fill to overflowing over the process of this cycle) my last two cycles have been 30 and 29 days, and my most recent day one was April 3. If I have two 30-day cycles, I will have a day 1 on June 1. If I have one 30-day cycle and one 29-day cycle, day 1 will fall on the last day of May and I’ll have to wait until late June to call in my day 1 for the mock cycle. Transfer will either occur in early July or early August.
All my pregnancies to date (three of them) have been conceived between May 9 and June 15. I’m not sure what the universe is telling me here.
Let the obsessing begin.
Aren’t we overdue for a meme around here?
My evening routine was disrupted. No time to post. My morning routine is a disaster today. No time to post. When all else fails, you can always find a meme somewhere.
This is hardly cutting edge psychological analysis, but fairly accurate nonetheless…
| Your Five Factor Personality Profile |
 Extroversion: You have medium extroversion. Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. |
Blogging your brand
Poor Beloved. Not only does he have to put up with all the time I sink into blog, and every family moment being potential blog fodder, but he has to endure a blogosphere play-by-play as it tries to pass for polite dinner conversation.
(Sidebar: I just had an interesting insight. Are blogs to women of our generation what soap operas were to the women of the previous generation? Discuss.)
So I was telling Beloved about this blogger, who happens to be a columnist for one of our national dailies, and her post about buying $140 designer jeans for her daughter. Her two-year-old daughter. Once we got past the whole idea of spending that much money on a single pair of pants for a toddler, we started discussing her blog in general, and how I can’t quite warm up to it because I think she posts stuff just to be inflamatory and get people talking about her.
And Beloved said, “So what?”
I thought about it, and he’s right. Who says blogging has to be sincere, or genuine, or authentic? Maybe her life really is just like she posts in her blog, but I think she torques it to get people talking – if not to her, at least about her. She’s using her blog to promote her brand, and if it’s working, more power to her. It’s that old axiom, I guess, about say whatever you want about me in the papers, just make sure you spell my name right.
She’s drawing a surprising amount of venom and vitriol, though. I’ve been writing this blog more or less daily for a year, and she gets more hateful comments in a day than I’ve gotten altogether. (Come to think of it, I’ve never gotten a hateful comment. Touch wood.) Someone’s even gone to all the trouble of making a mockup of her blog. And while I don’t agree with a lot of what she writes, or have a lot in common with her, I kind of admire her ability to stir things up.
What do you think? Go ahead, choose a topic – blogs as modern-day soaps, $140 jeans for toddlers, truth and accuracy in blogging, blogging to promote your brand – surely there’s something worth commenting on!
Once more, with feeling
Sometimes stubbornness can be a good thing. No, really! Maybe not so much in your average preschooler, but it has its merits.
Like me. I’m stubborn. Tenacious. Don’t tell me I can’t do something, because it pisses me off and makes me try harder. After I sulk and lick my wounds for a while, anyway.
Today I start yet another second language training course. Rather than being in a class of six people for four hours a week, it’s just me and the teacher for six hours a day, twice a week, until the middle of May.
Those of you who’ve been around for a while will recall that I recently passed both my reading and writing exams with flying colours, and proceeded to fail my oral exam. The week I took the test was perhaps one of the most stressful of the year for me. I should have delayed it, but hind sight is always clearer, isn’t it? Besides, I’m stubborn.
They mail you a little evaluation after the fact, and tick off areas you need to improve to achieve your next level. To my credit, there weren’t too many tick marks – I must have been close. I got busted on things like ‘your sentences were frequently strung together without the linking necessary to convey the message clearly.’ Beloved looked over the evaluation, gave me a long look and said, “You can’t do most of this stuff in English these days.” He was right. I’m not sure if it made me feel better or not.
Alors, on essaye encore. My teacher is the same one I had before, and I like her a lot. Six hours a day of one-on-one language training is intense, though – at least in a classroom you can nod sagely while the other students are talking and zone out for a minute, or be relieved when somebody else continues to be perplexed by the subjunctive for the third day in a row. Private lessons means its all me, all the time. The Dani Show, in neither official language. Yikes!
Sunshine and suburban strolling
I’m a little confused. It’s Monday, but this is definitely going to be a ramble. Sorry for the break in routine!
I read on the weekend (did you notice that almost all my Monday posts begin with “I read on the weekend” or some variant thereof?) an article that said tanning releases endorphins, similar to the ‘runner’s high’, that make you happy and relaxed, but that can also be addictive and cause symptoms of withdrawal.
That pretty much explains November. It might also explain why I feel so great after spending several hours outside with the boys yesterday – despite the pink sunburn stretching my cheeks a little too taut. (I need more transition time between scarves and sunscreen!)
Not a bad day, all in all. In the morning we went for a walk. Well, it was more like a jog – in the lurchy kind of way you jog to keep up with a preschooler on a bike while dragging another preschooler behind you in a wagon – and played at the ‘play park’ (Simonism) for a bit.
While Simon napped, I worked out our tax returns. I was surprised to find out that that we paid almost $7500 in child care last year, just for part-time care. Did I mention that the House is sitting today for the first day under Stephen Harper? I’ll let the dust settle from the IVF funding debate before I start crowing about the “Choice in Child Care Allowance” (turns to the side and spits) again. But be warned, it’s coming.
By the time Simon woke up, I was squirrelly from number crunching and we had no plans for dinner, so we set off on another wander, this one to the Farm Boy that just opened near us. I heart Farm Boy! It’s great having a market within walking distance of the house, and especially lovely to have fresh fruits and vegetables that are – gasp! – fresh. We picked up a couple of pepper steaks, some Asian noodle salad and some multigrain rice pilaf and had ourselves a barbequed feast for dinner. Delish!
We celebrated the end of a gorgeous day with a family trip to Dairy Queen. This is one of those things I remember so clearly from my childhood that I’m happy to carry on to the next generation. Nothing says summer like ice cream running down the chin of a happy preschooler!
And the final stop on my ramble today is with what I chose not to watch on TV last night. Every year, I try to tune in for at least a little bit of the Juno (Canadian music) awards, but with Pamela Anderson as the host last night, I just couldn’t bring myself to watch, especially when I knew she’d be going on about the whole seal hunt thing. I kind of wish I had at least caught Jann Arden’s comment though. Apparently she walked on stage and said, “I just want everyone to know that my brassiere is made entirely of seal eyelids.”
Okay, so for this entire post I have been debating on whether or not to call down the gods and admit to this or not, but I can’t help myself. You know how I was looking forward to a certain day on the calendar? You know what time my boys woke up yesterday? 6:25 am. (I was astonished.) You know what time they woke up this morning? Me neither… the house was still silent when I slipped out the door at twenty of seven.
It’ll never last – but I’ll take what I can get!
Reader mail – funding for reproductive technologies
Last week after I posted about demanding public funding for IVF, I exchanged a series of e-mails with Janet, a regular blog reader from elsewhere in Ontario. I’m posting chunks of our conversation here, with Janet’s permission, because while I disagree with her, I think she raises some interesting points worth debating and I’d be interested in your opinion, too. A lot of you are familiar with the state of reproductive technology in Canada, and a lot of you are not. I’d love to hear from anyone who has a thought to contribute.
Janet’s original e-mail (which, rest assured, was very polite, respectful and full of compliments about my writing style) and reply to my response have been edited together here:
I simply don’t think taxpayers should be paying for these treatments at this point in time, and here’s why:
I am the parent of a child with a developmental disorder, and along with that comes many issues, not the least of which are long waiting lists (1-3 years, no joke) for services like speech therapy. There are wonderful services out there, but they are expensive and right now, unfortunately, are”only for the rich” (to quote the link on your post today).
I do think more potential parents need to become aware of the risks that go along with multiple birth pregnancies that are often a result of IVF. And I know that this education is not happening. And if it is, not effectively so.
Also, in our province (I also live in Ontario), autism funding is cut off at the age of six (as if these children will somehow have no need of services after six). One of my friends has to pay $7,000 PER MONTH out of her own pocket for her daughter’s treatment, simply to ensure her child will be able to communicate with others, never mind function in society. None of this is covered.
As a parent, I really do realize that the emotional side to this issue cannot be ignored. But by asking for government and taxpayer involvement (and suggesting that a potential under-population propblem could be resolved through IVF), the issue is now open for practical debate, and there are some very practical issues involved.
The other issue, which I think is a real hot button, is one of personal responsibility. As a 37-year old woman (and not in my ideal age range for reproduction without inherent risk) I’m not sure that taxpayers should pay for my fertility treatments because I’ve decided to wait until my natural fertility has declined significantly to address my reproductive desires (N.B. I’m talking ONLY about age-related infertility here).
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I really believe that in this kind of a situation, I should be paying for fertility treatment out of my own pocket if I really choose to have another child, at an “advanced” age, reproductively speaking. For God’s sake…I’m finding new, wiry grey hairs on a daily basis!! Is this the best time for me to be having another child? As much as I may want to? I don’t know. It’s such a personal decision, and that’s one reason why I think it should have a personal solution.
There does seem (among women our age) to be a belief out there that just because the technology exists, we can and should use it. I’m just not so sure that is always the case.
Until our society can afford to take proper care of its existing citizens, I’m not sure we should be asking society to fund potential pregnancies. I certainly don’t want to fund overseas adoptions for couples/individuals who decide to go that route, and I’m not sure what the difference is here. Maybe I’m missing something? I would love to hear your point of view on this.
And here’s the bulk of my replies:
I think comparing funding for autism and special needs to funding for reproductive techologies is like, to use a tired old metaphor, comparing apples to oranges. They have more differences than things in common. While I don’t argue that maybe we should be funding special needs more – I’ll readily admit my ignorance on this subject – I do believe that IVF should be funded and here’s a few reasons why.
First, and I know people hate this argument, but unless you’ve been through the hell that is infertility, you really have no idea what a basic human right it is to want to parent a child. When you have spent your entire existence simply assuming that the largest part of your life, and perhaps, if you are like me, your singular goal, will be mothering and then to find out for medical reasons beyond your control you are about to be denied that…. as I said, it’s impossible to put into words if you haven’t been there.
ARTs are funded unevenly in our country. In Ontario you get full funding for three attempts at IVF if you have two blocked tubes, but you don’t get that same coverage if you live in other provinces. And if your IVF is due to male factor, or other factors beyond bilateral blocked tubes, you don’t get coverage. The government has seen fit to bless some forms of ARTs, the older ones, with funding but still calls IVF – a procedure that is 25 years old! – experimental. You mention (and I have to admit, I bristled at the suggestion) that maybe there are dangers to the children that are conceived under ARTs. One thing about IVF, which is not funded, versus IUI, which is funded, is that with IVF you have much greater control over the number of embryos, therefore significantly reduced numbers of triplets or other high-order multiples. Almost all of the risks inherent to IVF (and believe me, this is something I’ve researched very very carefully) are from the risks associated with conceiving multiples and most of the fertility clinics I know of, certainly the Ottawa Fertility Centre, do not take the risk of multiples lightly. I had only three embryos and my clinic refused to transfer more than two due to the risk of triplet pregnancy. To say that there isn’t enough education of patients going through the process is insulting to both the doctors and the people they are treating.
So, while I appreciate you taking the time to write, I wholeheartedly disagree with you. For what it’s worth, by the way, we do have tax credits to trim the costs of adoption, both domestic and overseas, and I’m in support of those, too!
One last point from me, and only because it’s one that drives me crazy. Of all the families I know who have gone through IVF, and I know at least 20 in real life and know of hundreds of others through contact on IVF message boards (and blogs!), ‘advanced maternal age” is almost never the issue. I’d say never, but maybe there are a few of them out there – but at least of the 20 or so in my tight little circle, all have had things like burst tubes or severe endo or male factor infertility – there was no real factor of personal responsibility, just of medical necessity. I think the image of the career girl who finally gets the urge to procreate in her mid-thirties and turns to IVF when it takes too long the old fashioned way is a creation of the media. Even factoring out the cost, the uncertainty and the needles and the hormones and the intrusiveness of an IVF cycle makes it far from a casual undertaking.
***
What do you think? Consider the debate officially opened, but please be respectful. It’s a sensitive issue on all parts, and I’m extremely proud of the high level of respect commenters have always shown here.