NoQuotaOnGrief
08-28-2009, 03:13 AM
I'll try to keep this short.... :D
Our son was stillborn w/o warning 12/12/04 @ 26 weeks. I turned 36 2 weeks later. I'd been in distress for nearly a week but our lovely insurance @ the time (Kaiser in Stockton, CA) blew off my calls until I was in active labor and he'd been gone for a week. 6 hours after going in for "monitoring", our firstborn was gone.
All we got was a polariod and some messed up footprints (hello, it's not like he was WIGGLING @@). The experience was a nightmare due to the staff, but that's another thread.
2005-2006 (so age 36-37) I underwent 7 rounds of Clomid and/or Repronex with another Kaiser winner, a "specialist" by the name of Curt Klooster. He's a good looking silver fox and could moonlight as a used car salesman.... My FSH level was 6.6 (freaking awesome when you're 36 years old!!!) He pronounced me "old", told me that one pregnancy didn't guarantee another and called DH a "semen demon". Our infertility was "unexplained". I got the distinct feeling he had been lying to me because I had to fight tooth and nail to get a lap done (lo and behold, I DID have level I/II endo!! :eek: ) so I began to heavily delve into female fertility and found out everything he was tellng me wasn't applicable. He also pressured us relentlessly for IVF which we could NOT afford. I began to suspect my husband and the proclamation of the "semen demon" was not accurate. My dear hubby is 100# overweight. If WOMEN's hormones can be affected by weight, what about MEN?
December, 2006 we moved from Stockton, CA to Oklahoma City, OK (Carolyn, meet culture shock!!!) to get away from Kaiser with their 50% fertility copay. With the lower cost of living and a better tech market, we thought we could pursue our dreams of parenthood, YALL!
February 2007 (since I'd been told I'd be such an awesome IVF candidate) I saw another "Expert" who can afford spendy bulletin boards all around metro OKC proclaiming himself one of the best in the country. His name was Dr. Kallenberger @ Bennett Fertility. He was a pompous *** and I have run into other women who've had the same experience with him. He finally did a KRUEGER s/a which is I guess what they use for IVF screens ONLY. BINGO! DH was NOT a semen demon. 98% of his sperm were abnormal, so all those IUIs with Clomid/Repronex were destined to fail due to the use of dud sperm. I cashed in my retirement from my years pretraining inmates for the CA penal system (teaching) to pay for one IVF cycle. His "solution" to DH's sperm issues was to add ICSI (single injection of sperm into the egg vs a random hookup in the petri dish.) It's harder on old eggs because they have to strip off the outer layer (zona pellicu-something). Another cycle with a snowball's chance in **** of working.
He ALSO wasn't interested in the etyology of DH's sperm issues. Why SHOULD he be? He could pressure desperate ppl into IVF. I was "old", DH was "Fat", end of story.
That cycle failed on Mother's Day, 2007. We adopted an old Boston Terrier instead. @@ We took about a year off and checked into adoption from DHS.... Ummm Oklahoma ranks #1 in death from abuse and neglect of children in the nation. No, I can't remain "neutral" when DHS is so corrupt and broken in this state. The FP training was almost comical. It portrayed FC like a Lifetime movie, but most in the class had kinship cases, so they already had the children in their homes and they heckled the teachers when the teachers started giving them stereotypical scenarios
I also began to delve heavily into complimentary medicine. I started taking L-Arginine which has been shown to help with oocyte retrieval/fertilization in IVF. If it works for IVF, what about eggs ovulated naturally? DH started taking Vit. C and E, natural anti-oxidants to possibly help with sperm production.
Due to a billing error from BFI, it left enough insurance coverage intact to pursue IUIs again so in July 2008 (age 39 now) we knew my FSH was now 9.5 and DH had horrible morphology. We went to the other clinic in Oklahoma City, Center for Reproductive Medicine @ OU. Dr. Craig referred DH to a urologist (something I'd been gunning for for 3 years, *&&^%).
Within 5 minutes of seeing the urologist (the only medical dr I have an ounce of respect for, I LUV DH's urologist), he was diagnosed. He was incredulous that he'd gone 3 years with no exam. He has a structural anomaly with one of his testicles, had a systemic infection (no one had ever taken PEE from him, they always took SEMEN) and Dr. Sindwhani did a HORMONE workup on him. DH has extremely low testosterone. He started on HCG shots for it (testosterone injections will ironically make him sterile).
We knew we were burning daylight with my age, so I didn't think twice about taking the Femara Dr. Craig Rx'd for me. I took it 4 months July-Nov 2008 with 3 IUIs of donor sperm. The last one we used DH's since he was FINALLY on the road to recovery.
On my 40th birthday in December, I told DH I was DONE. He'd been treated and after a total of 11 IUIs and one IVF, I had ENOUGH. I was willing to live child free, give up the dream and get on with our lives. He had his first EVER normal s/a in January. We had sex (40+ months of BFNs kills one's love life) ONCE in January and the OPK'd never turned pink!
Imagine my surprise when around Valentines Day I was whining to my mom on the phone that AF was late (as was my last Femara cycle in November. In 30 years of AF, I have been "late" maybe twice) and I'd have to do the provera to bring on AF. I had thought I was pg in November and that BFN was just too much. The next morning I peed on a stick......... ||
I had all the "old mommy" testing done except the amnio because of the 1/2% risk of m/c. Little did I know we were in for something 100000 times worse. I had the nuchal scan done @ 13 weeks (measures folds on back of baby's neck since downs babies tend to accumulate fluid there) and the AFP. I still have the b/w results they mailed to me that says my risk of Trisomy 18 and 21 is 1:1000. The old mommy bloodwork does NOT check for Trisomy 13!
It seemed the 4 year nightmare FINALLY had a happy ending.
We were godsmacked at my level II u/s @ 19.5 weeks to discover that our baby GIRL never developed her forebrain. It's called holoprosencephaly and can be caused by "hormones" according to an info sheet I got from the TX CDC. I IMMEDIATELY started looking for a malpractice attorney because Femara is a BREAST CANCER DRUG and it's used OFF LABEL for fertility. The amnio revealed Trisomy 13 which in my alternative medicine research (started after I got pg) I found a possible connection between fungus in our food source and T-13.
The prolifers have heralded me a hero. Whatever. I strongly considered early induction (VERY hard to do even with an "incompatible with life" diagnosis in a rabid prolife state), but the purpose in her demise would've been to jump back on the TTC bandwagon again and what if god chose to so "bless" us again? We would've done her in for nothing. Going f/t also adds "suffering" to the punitive side of my lawsuit for the offlabel use of Femara.
Mostly though, it's giving us a chance to plan to say goodbye though. My OB was convinced she'd be s/b weeks ago, so I wasn't in a hurry to terminate because she would terminate herself. I am "old" and I had a 26 week loss. I'm fat. I would get pre-eclampsia. (found a possilbe fungal link with that as well so I am taking appropriate action and my BP has been 80/50 or lower).
As it stands now, I have a lot to do in September so I don't have time to have a baby, LOL. OB said if we want her to look as normal (baby like) as possible that we should go to 37 weeks which is the first week of October. She's been given about 72 hours to live which is fine with me. God allowed the genetically perfect one to die due to medical incompetence. The children who do "exist" for a few days/weeks with this DUAL (I haven't found one with BOTH T-13 AND HPE) diagnosis suffer enormously and oftentimes their medical bills bankrupt their parents.. and for what? I am ready for her to go. I have no intention of bringing her home from the hossy; I don't want the sadness of a child dying in our home.
A stillbirth, 4 years of "secondary IF" (usually is not preceded by a stillbirth -for most the "secondary IF" is preceeded by a LIVING CHILD) @ the hands of "experts" and then I had GIVEN UP the dream of having children and I get pregnant with THIS? God is an incredibly cruel bastard is all I can say.
The hardest thing has been people's terminal stupidity, especially among the older generation (my parents are sr citizens). I wound up writing a 2 page essay (I'll post it) about what "incompatible with life" truly means and the prognosis of T13 and HPE because both my mom and I got so SICK of hearing, "Oh, sonograms lie, she'll be fine" (how about an amnio?)or my favorite, "We'll pray for a miracle". I just look at them and say, "Pray for a merciful end". Then there's always the "It can't be that bad... she has a heartbeat!!!" Yep, it's a parasitical relationship and once she's no longer dependent on her host mommy, she's BONED!
I cried with our son. Now I just seek justice for our daughter because of the possible drug connection.
I have to give a shout out to Miracle Within in Edmond, OK. My OB and I were joking about what our baby (her name is Aurora Nicole. Aurora is the princess in Sleeping Beauty. Kinda appropriate) might look like since her forehead area looked a bit flat @ my 19 wk appt. I asked if she might look like a Startrek alien. When I had a chance for a 4D u/s, I jumped on it. My mom was visiting from CA (she had come out for the induction I backed out of, got badly injured and was still here @ 28 weeks!!) and she was able to come (DH was working). I am so glad we did it. Yes, we could see her deformities, but we could also see her long Scandanavian legs inherited from both her parents. For an hour, she was a baby being a baby (hiding face - foreshadowing???) unaware of her imminent fate. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii210/JoniLovesTschotschke_etsy_com/0827091934.jpg
Our son was stillborn w/o warning 12/12/04 @ 26 weeks. I turned 36 2 weeks later. I'd been in distress for nearly a week but our lovely insurance @ the time (Kaiser in Stockton, CA) blew off my calls until I was in active labor and he'd been gone for a week. 6 hours after going in for "monitoring", our firstborn was gone.
All we got was a polariod and some messed up footprints (hello, it's not like he was WIGGLING @@). The experience was a nightmare due to the staff, but that's another thread.
2005-2006 (so age 36-37) I underwent 7 rounds of Clomid and/or Repronex with another Kaiser winner, a "specialist" by the name of Curt Klooster. He's a good looking silver fox and could moonlight as a used car salesman.... My FSH level was 6.6 (freaking awesome when you're 36 years old!!!) He pronounced me "old", told me that one pregnancy didn't guarantee another and called DH a "semen demon". Our infertility was "unexplained". I got the distinct feeling he had been lying to me because I had to fight tooth and nail to get a lap done (lo and behold, I DID have level I/II endo!! :eek: ) so I began to heavily delve into female fertility and found out everything he was tellng me wasn't applicable. He also pressured us relentlessly for IVF which we could NOT afford. I began to suspect my husband and the proclamation of the "semen demon" was not accurate. My dear hubby is 100# overweight. If WOMEN's hormones can be affected by weight, what about MEN?
December, 2006 we moved from Stockton, CA to Oklahoma City, OK (Carolyn, meet culture shock!!!) to get away from Kaiser with their 50% fertility copay. With the lower cost of living and a better tech market, we thought we could pursue our dreams of parenthood, YALL!
February 2007 (since I'd been told I'd be such an awesome IVF candidate) I saw another "Expert" who can afford spendy bulletin boards all around metro OKC proclaiming himself one of the best in the country. His name was Dr. Kallenberger @ Bennett Fertility. He was a pompous *** and I have run into other women who've had the same experience with him. He finally did a KRUEGER s/a which is I guess what they use for IVF screens ONLY. BINGO! DH was NOT a semen demon. 98% of his sperm were abnormal, so all those IUIs with Clomid/Repronex were destined to fail due to the use of dud sperm. I cashed in my retirement from my years pretraining inmates for the CA penal system (teaching) to pay for one IVF cycle. His "solution" to DH's sperm issues was to add ICSI (single injection of sperm into the egg vs a random hookup in the petri dish.) It's harder on old eggs because they have to strip off the outer layer (zona pellicu-something). Another cycle with a snowball's chance in **** of working.
He ALSO wasn't interested in the etyology of DH's sperm issues. Why SHOULD he be? He could pressure desperate ppl into IVF. I was "old", DH was "Fat", end of story.
That cycle failed on Mother's Day, 2007. We adopted an old Boston Terrier instead. @@ We took about a year off and checked into adoption from DHS.... Ummm Oklahoma ranks #1 in death from abuse and neglect of children in the nation. No, I can't remain "neutral" when DHS is so corrupt and broken in this state. The FP training was almost comical. It portrayed FC like a Lifetime movie, but most in the class had kinship cases, so they already had the children in their homes and they heckled the teachers when the teachers started giving them stereotypical scenarios
I also began to delve heavily into complimentary medicine. I started taking L-Arginine which has been shown to help with oocyte retrieval/fertilization in IVF. If it works for IVF, what about eggs ovulated naturally? DH started taking Vit. C and E, natural anti-oxidants to possibly help with sperm production.
Due to a billing error from BFI, it left enough insurance coverage intact to pursue IUIs again so in July 2008 (age 39 now) we knew my FSH was now 9.5 and DH had horrible morphology. We went to the other clinic in Oklahoma City, Center for Reproductive Medicine @ OU. Dr. Craig referred DH to a urologist (something I'd been gunning for for 3 years, *&&^%).
Within 5 minutes of seeing the urologist (the only medical dr I have an ounce of respect for, I LUV DH's urologist), he was diagnosed. He was incredulous that he'd gone 3 years with no exam. He has a structural anomaly with one of his testicles, had a systemic infection (no one had ever taken PEE from him, they always took SEMEN) and Dr. Sindwhani did a HORMONE workup on him. DH has extremely low testosterone. He started on HCG shots for it (testosterone injections will ironically make him sterile).
We knew we were burning daylight with my age, so I didn't think twice about taking the Femara Dr. Craig Rx'd for me. I took it 4 months July-Nov 2008 with 3 IUIs of donor sperm. The last one we used DH's since he was FINALLY on the road to recovery.
On my 40th birthday in December, I told DH I was DONE. He'd been treated and after a total of 11 IUIs and one IVF, I had ENOUGH. I was willing to live child free, give up the dream and get on with our lives. He had his first EVER normal s/a in January. We had sex (40+ months of BFNs kills one's love life) ONCE in January and the OPK'd never turned pink!
Imagine my surprise when around Valentines Day I was whining to my mom on the phone that AF was late (as was my last Femara cycle in November. In 30 years of AF, I have been "late" maybe twice) and I'd have to do the provera to bring on AF. I had thought I was pg in November and that BFN was just too much. The next morning I peed on a stick......... ||
I had all the "old mommy" testing done except the amnio because of the 1/2% risk of m/c. Little did I know we were in for something 100000 times worse. I had the nuchal scan done @ 13 weeks (measures folds on back of baby's neck since downs babies tend to accumulate fluid there) and the AFP. I still have the b/w results they mailed to me that says my risk of Trisomy 18 and 21 is 1:1000. The old mommy bloodwork does NOT check for Trisomy 13!
It seemed the 4 year nightmare FINALLY had a happy ending.
We were godsmacked at my level II u/s @ 19.5 weeks to discover that our baby GIRL never developed her forebrain. It's called holoprosencephaly and can be caused by "hormones" according to an info sheet I got from the TX CDC. I IMMEDIATELY started looking for a malpractice attorney because Femara is a BREAST CANCER DRUG and it's used OFF LABEL for fertility. The amnio revealed Trisomy 13 which in my alternative medicine research (started after I got pg) I found a possible connection between fungus in our food source and T-13.
The prolifers have heralded me a hero. Whatever. I strongly considered early induction (VERY hard to do even with an "incompatible with life" diagnosis in a rabid prolife state), but the purpose in her demise would've been to jump back on the TTC bandwagon again and what if god chose to so "bless" us again? We would've done her in for nothing. Going f/t also adds "suffering" to the punitive side of my lawsuit for the offlabel use of Femara.
Mostly though, it's giving us a chance to plan to say goodbye though. My OB was convinced she'd be s/b weeks ago, so I wasn't in a hurry to terminate because she would terminate herself. I am "old" and I had a 26 week loss. I'm fat. I would get pre-eclampsia. (found a possilbe fungal link with that as well so I am taking appropriate action and my BP has been 80/50 or lower).
As it stands now, I have a lot to do in September so I don't have time to have a baby, LOL. OB said if we want her to look as normal (baby like) as possible that we should go to 37 weeks which is the first week of October. She's been given about 72 hours to live which is fine with me. God allowed the genetically perfect one to die due to medical incompetence. The children who do "exist" for a few days/weeks with this DUAL (I haven't found one with BOTH T-13 AND HPE) diagnosis suffer enormously and oftentimes their medical bills bankrupt their parents.. and for what? I am ready for her to go. I have no intention of bringing her home from the hossy; I don't want the sadness of a child dying in our home.
A stillbirth, 4 years of "secondary IF" (usually is not preceded by a stillbirth -for most the "secondary IF" is preceeded by a LIVING CHILD) @ the hands of "experts" and then I had GIVEN UP the dream of having children and I get pregnant with THIS? God is an incredibly cruel bastard is all I can say.
The hardest thing has been people's terminal stupidity, especially among the older generation (my parents are sr citizens). I wound up writing a 2 page essay (I'll post it) about what "incompatible with life" truly means and the prognosis of T13 and HPE because both my mom and I got so SICK of hearing, "Oh, sonograms lie, she'll be fine" (how about an amnio?)or my favorite, "We'll pray for a miracle". I just look at them and say, "Pray for a merciful end". Then there's always the "It can't be that bad... she has a heartbeat!!!" Yep, it's a parasitical relationship and once she's no longer dependent on her host mommy, she's BONED!
I cried with our son. Now I just seek justice for our daughter because of the possible drug connection.
I have to give a shout out to Miracle Within in Edmond, OK. My OB and I were joking about what our baby (her name is Aurora Nicole. Aurora is the princess in Sleeping Beauty. Kinda appropriate) might look like since her forehead area looked a bit flat @ my 19 wk appt. I asked if she might look like a Startrek alien. When I had a chance for a 4D u/s, I jumped on it. My mom was visiting from CA (she had come out for the induction I backed out of, got badly injured and was still here @ 28 weeks!!) and she was able to come (DH was working). I am so glad we did it. Yes, we could see her deformities, but we could also see her long Scandanavian legs inherited from both her parents. For an hour, she was a baby being a baby (hiding face - foreshadowing???) unaware of her imminent fate. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii210/JoniLovesTschotschke_etsy_com/0827091934.jpg