The Beach

Linus and I went to the beach today. I met my aunt and uncle and grandma in Lincoln City for fish & chips first. The spot was a little hole in the wall but the fish was really good - fresh and not overly oily. Usually when I get fish & chips in town, there's so much oil in the fish that it soaks through the breading and makes it impossible to eat easily. Yum.

Then I said goodbye to the family and Linus and I traveled down the coast highway, looking for a good place to play. We stopped at Gleneden Beach but the tide was up so high that we wouldn't have been able to get past the tiny cove that kids were playing in, so we moved on. We ended up at Agate Beach, where we've been several times.

I threw the ball for Linus and collected driftwood for a quick little sculpture to leave on the beach, and wrote things in the sand.



It felt good to be alone and reflective for a little while, with nothing to do but wander and feel the wind. I thought a lot about what we'll be going through this summer, trying again for a baby, and it made me simultaneously excited and sad. I keep excitedly thinking "this time it will work! It HAS to work!" and then I catch myself and think "protect yourself! Don't be optimistic because if it doesn't work, the crash will hurt more!" I know it's good to think positive, but it's scary too. I think about the day the clinic called with our first negative pregnancy test and how afterwards I stood in the stairwell at work, leaned up against the wall sobbing my eyes out, and I so desperately don't want that to happen again.

But the only way it won't happen again is if I don't try again. And we all know I'll be trying again. So in the meantime, I might as well think positive.


The beach makes my hair look amazing.

May 12

I called ORM yesterday afternoon to schedule our consultation. They have a new digital patient record system, so instead of scheduling me they emailed me with a login to their portal as well as medical record release forms, and asked me to call back when I'd gotten that stuff all updated.

So we spent half an hour or so going through the patient history and contact forms online last night, and I filled out four release forms this morning and emailed them all in, and called ORM back this afternoon.

So May 12 is the day! I had a choice between two doctors and I chose based on a few YouTube videos I'd seen recently of a local panel discussion they did awhile back. I mentioned that I'd been with OHSU before and that I was hoping ORM would be able to help me a little more successfully, and the receptionist was only too happy to tell me how much better the customer service is at ORM. Heh. I didn't have a problem with OHSU's service for the most part, but I'm still excited to see what the office and nurses and our doctor are like.

Work is going to be very busy for the next month, leading up to our annual conference at the end of April; and then I have a renaissance faire to perform at the weekend before the appointment, so I know the days will fly by until then. But that hasn't stopped me from staying awake thinking about our upcoming excitement for the past couple of nights. 

Climbing the Pomegranate Tree Vlog #4

Look at me go! Two in as many days!



Sorry if I ramble; staying on point and not saying um and being eloquent (or as eloquent as I can be) is hard work! Practice makes perfect.

Climbing the Pomegranate Tree Vlog #3

Way back in December, I recorded a blog that I ended up not being able to edit because of my laptop problems. Well last night I finally realized I could do a decent editing job on my iPad. Better late than never!

Hurry Up and Wait

I knew this would happen. I had a tiny short burst of productivity and now I'm craving more. I want to make appointments. I want to move. Basically I want to fast-forward to May. Of course, then I remind myself what good being impatient did last time. Infertility and IVF is all about waiting.

Really, there are tons of things I could be doing in the meantime. Fine-tuning my diet. Starting prenatals. Continuing yoga. Research. Timing my cycles so I can report to the RE. Connecting with other infertiles online. Writing in my blog. Making sure that IVF isn't the only thing I'm striving for. If I focus on other things, like work and yoga, it'll be way better than putting IVF blinders on. Especially since I'm such an optimist that I already feel like it's a done deal. Again. Even though that same thinking was what killed me the first time the clinic called to inform me of my negative pregnancy test. Stop it, brain. Let's go over here for awhile.

So today I'm doing taxes, mowing the lawn, clearing up more pampas grass (we have giant ones that I haven't thinned in three years and now I'm paying for it), cleaning the house a bit, finishing up a book for work that I need to hand off to some other coworkers, and writing some policy for work. And going to see a movie with C, because he finally has a few minutes that he can devote to something other than his job. Woo!

Clinic Success Rates

I made it home, and now I'm researching! And I also need to put all my old paperwork together in a separate area so I can start fresh with my polka-dot IVF folders.

My first piece of research is to look again at the Sart clinic summary reports for my local clinics, to make sure that my two-year-old decision to go with Oregon Reproductive Medicine is still the right one.

There are three clinics within 100 miles of me (i.e. Portland), and just a quick check of their 2012 success rates clinches it for me:
Northwest Fertility Center -  52.3% pregnancy success rate, and a 50% live birth success rate, with 111 cycles
University Fertility Consultants (where I had my last procedure) - 53.3% pregnancy success rate and a 51.1% live birth success rate, with 370 cycles
Oregon Reproductive Medicine - 64.7% pregnancy success rate and a 58.7% live birth success rate, with 942 cycles


Even when you only look at male factor success rates, OHSU is 66.7% and ORM is 73.1%. So it looks like ORM is still the right choice.

Really, I know that I can't go on success rates alone. I had a better than 50% chance of getting pregnant last time and I didn't get pregnant. But at least I can feel better about going to a clinic that I know will give me a slightly better chance.

On your mark...

After I paid the car payment the other day, I saw that we have less than $300 left to go! That means it's time to start gearing up with research, making sure that I'm choosing the right clinic for our next IVF try. All day I've been jittery, waiting for the end of work so I can go home and start obsessively looking at success rates and finance plans. I'm nervous!