Mashed Potato Salad

Okay so I forgot to take a photograph of the mashed potato salad, sorry.  I guess you'll just have to picture the mashed potatoes being yellowish from the eggs.

Here is my recipe:

Mashed Potato Salad  Serves about 8

6 large Red skin potatoes
1/2 cup sweet pickle relish
3 TBSP white vinegar
2 TBSP white sugar
1 cup Kraft Fat Free Mayonaise
1/4 cup dried chopped onion
5 hard boiled eggs
1 tsp. cheap yellow mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Wash and chop up the red skin potatoes leaving the skins on.  Put in a large pot of water and boil about 15 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender.  While the potatoes are boiling the eggs should be in another pot boiling as well but for about  4 minutes.  Drain water out of both pots.  Mash up the potatoes.  Cut up boiled eggs and add to the mashed up potatoes.

Add in the pickle relish, vinegar, sugar, onion, mayonaise, and mustard to the eggs and potatoes.  Using a hand mixer on medium speed mix up the ingredients thoroughly adding in the salt and pepper as needed.

There you have it.  My husband just loved the mashed potato salad which can be served hot or cold.  Its an easy dish to bring to any party for the holidays or FRG meeting.

Waiting on What Ifs

I had my day 5 Estradiol draw this morning at 0700hrs.  Now I have to wait for those results to see if my medicine routine will be changed up.  I'm thinking that its going to change a bit and I've got good reason to think along those lines.

I had my ultrasound at 0800 hrs.  Nurse M asked if I've had any pain.  I said some.  Scale of 1 to 10 its been a 4 or a 5.  I'm pretty good at tolerating pain with having Fibromyalgia.

I got on the scale.  I've lost according to their scale but according to mine I've gained back 1.2 of the 2.8 I lost this week.  So I was bummed out.  Nurse M said weight gain is to be expected with the ovaries swelling up.  Sure, sure, tell that to me all you want but I know that I failed myself.

Nurse M asked if I've been experiencing any of the side effects from the medicines.  Yup.  Headaches, nausea, bitchiness, lack of sleep but I've got it under the best of control I can with counseling, avoiding the television which increases the headaches, and venting when needed.

J held my hand during the scan.  He was nervous.  He has been really stressed for the past few weeks about this IVF cycle and other things like deployment issues.  Now for the results of the scan.  Um, well its not all that good.  Last week I had 8 antrals, potential follicles/eggs, now I have three on the left of which are ready to go now.  What do you mean you could do a retrieval now? 

Dr. C. said he could have an egg retrieval on Sunday for the 3 ripe follicles measuring over 20 mm in size.  But....yes there is always a but.  He then said that I have 4 potentials on the right that he'd rather wait for.  Another BUT....But he said the 3 on the left would be no good by then.  SO...we are most likely going to do an egg retrieval of the four, I hope like hell that the four are ready and good, on Wednesday.  I'm two days ahead of my IVF schedule.

I did tell them at the start of this IVF cycle that I ovulate early.  They said it wouldn't happen that way because I'm on regulated hormones.  I so wanted to shout, "I TOLD YOU SO!".  But of course I didn't say it.

Another BUT....things might still not go as planned for Wednesday.  I still have another scan on Monday and another blood draw.  If the follicle aren't ready or if I'm now down to say two, then my IVF will get cancelled.  I have to be prepared.

I have to also be a realist here.  Even with four follicles on the right and three on the left I might not get a quality egg.  I might find out there is nothing of sufficient quality to do the ICSI on.

I was chatting with my husband about all the "what ifs" on the ride home this morning.  I wonder if I'll get a refund if there are no embryos to transfer.  Do I get a refund if there are no quality eggs?  If so how much?  How long before we could do another IVF cycle?

Then there are the big hopes and what ifs.  What if this actually works but I miscarry?  I've miscarried twins before.  What if my eggs seem of good quality but then I produce a baby with an arm sprouting out of its scull?  Hey's its always a possibility, a scary one but still possible.

I need to relax and not think about all these possibilities.  I need to keep my blood pressure down.  It was good today at 135/82.  I have to keep it low enough or else the retrieval will get cancelled.

Its The Egg Update

As I type this post I'm waiting to get my call from the fertility clinic on the time scheduled for the IUI tomorrow.  Alas I don't have as many ripe follicles as last cycle.  Again I have only a 5-6% chance to conceive in this cycle.

At best I have one or two more cycles for the clomid therapy.  There are other procedures that can be done and I just might have to explore those options.

I'm ready to be a mom.  I've always wanted to be a mother.  I know I can give to my child the attention, patience, and guidance that it will need.  I am scared.  I'm scared that I will never get the chance to experience motherhood in all its ups and downs.

A woman is most fertile between the ages of 18 and 25.  Most of us aren't ready to be mothers at those ages.  If I had taken that window years ago it wouldn't have been my husband that would have fathered my child it would have been someone else due to the fact that I'm nine years older than my spouse.

New technologies are being developed on egg freezing but for now eggs don't thaw out well at all.  Frozen embryos defrost just fine as well as frozen sperm.  Our eggs are just too fragile.

The good news is that I am fertile, its just my aging eggs, though I still have plenty to fertilize this cycle.  More good news is that my restrictions are lifted.  I'm allowed to cook, clean, exercise and so on but with the standard limitations of my back issues and the fibromyalgia of course.  I like doing housework.  Since I'm a domestic goddess I feel a sense of accomplishment knowing that I have a clean house.  I like it when people come into my house on any given day and see that it is clean.  Okay well its hard to get my husband to pick up after himself but I give him a bit of leeway on that considering military housing doesn't have enough storage space for all the Army gear that the soldiers are issued.  The soldiers need a bedroom all to themselves just to store their gear.

Egg Assured

 Moisture covered my bedroom window from top to bottom reminding me that soon the whole window frame would have to be replaced. Wiping  the wetness and mold from the structure yet again, I looked out and saw that frost covered the verdant lawn as the sun rose over Mount Rainer this morning.  It was going to be a beautiful day, though a cold one.  The floor was cold enough in the bedroom that I could feel the icy fingers of frost through my socks.  Yet, all was right in my little world.  Today I had a chance, a slim chance but a chance all the same.  Today I would have my IUI.

My spouse did his collection and the count was even better than last cycle.  I have more follicles than last cycle too.  The technician who did my insemination this morning told me that even though I'm 41 I still have a really good chance with the sperm and egg counts this cycle, better than most actually.  My husband was happy to hear that we had a good chance.  He really wants to be a daddy, not just a father that spends a few hours a week with his kid because he has to.

We often talk about the future and children.  Daydreaming about what our kids will look like, if they'll get into trouble, their grades, and yes the possibility of grandchildren.  For the next two weeks I'm to be treated as if I am pregnant until I test one way or the other.  So for the next two weeks I can dream with hopes of a happy, healthy baby.

Quality Versus Quantity

Sticking my hands into the pockets of my black London Fog hooded trench I walked with my head down following my spouse to where he parked the vehicle.  Rivulets of blackish tears were pooling on my cheek to drop unchecked to my coat.  I just didn't care.  My life was falling apart.  I was given bad news today by the doctor.

I'm fertile I cry.  I'm just too old to conceive it seems.  Eight years ago my husband wasn't ready to be a father.  We were college students without a good source of steady income.  Five and a half years ago we wed.  We still thought we had time to have children with neither one of us having medical insurance it was an understanding that we'd wait it out.  Almost four years ago he joined the US Army, we had good medical insurance at last.  Our problem then was location.  He ended up on an isolation tour of Korea, next was his deployment to Iraq.  Am I not meant to have children?  I've been doing the responsible thing all along.  I waited until I had insurance and could afford to feed an extra mouth. I didn't get knocked up as a teenager because I was afraid to have sex and get pregnant knowing that I'd get kicked out of the house.  So am I being punished now for being a responsible person?

Today was my ultrasound.  Each cycle I have an ultrasound to see how I am responding to the clomiphene.  I scored six large follicles.  Yup six eggs ready to be fertilized.  My first cycle on the clomiphene I had four, second cycle I had five do you see a trend?

The problem with me is not my blood pressure the doctor told me, though it is high and there are risks associated with high blood pressure during pregnancy.  There were three officers in my ultrasound room this morning, one was the female nurse that is required, one was the male ultrasound tech and one was the male doctor that told me the results.  He was also the bearer of bad news.  He said not to worry so much about my blood pressure but more about my age.  He explained that with each month my eggs are getting older and the mechanics in them, the DNA if you will, is getting defunct.  So this is why with five eggs last cycle I didn't conceive. 

Now I have to make a choice that I was hoping I wouldn't have to make.  The doctor is pushing for the IVF treatment.  Easy for him to say as he isn't paying for the procedure.  He told me its now $8,000.00 out-of-pocket.  Well that is going to just about clean out my savings account.  But there is only a twenty percent chance of it working.  He said eighty percent chance with my age of it failing but he said its our best option.

I have to let my team of doctors know soon if this is what we want to go ahead with.  I'll have to most likely call them by the end of the week with our answer.  I'm still going ahead with the IUI tomorrow and will do a double over two days.  I can still hope that one of the six eggs will take, right?

Needless to say I left the fertility clinic with tears in my eyes.  I should have been happy to find out I have six eggs.  I'm not.  The quality of the eggs isn't good. 

There is no rhyme or reason to how life works.  If you want something you work to get it.  Well I've been working my butt off to get a baby of our own.   Honestly I don't think I could adopt.  I couldn't deal with the open adoptions they have now knowing that the birth mother could take my child back on a whim.  Foster care to adopt runs the same risk but that the birth parents have to prove that they are now able to take care of their child. 

I'm so emotionally invested in having a child of my own now that I have to stop and think about the costs.  The hormones are tearing me up.  My husband is warned in advance, according to where I am in my cycle, of what to anticipate for moods.  He likes to anticipate.  So I warn him.  I don't like the hormone roller coaster, but I will do what I need to in order to ensure that I become pregnant with a healthy baby.

For my female friends out there, don't wait until you are in your forties to have a baby.  Its harder on the body and the egg quality diminishes quickly.  I was just told today that I have only a few months left in which to conceive.  I'm still far off from menopause but they don't want to try after I hit forty-two, of which I will be this summer.