Who's your daddy

If I were to need a sperm donor here are a few options and what our offspring would look like. (there are some not-so-hot pappas below but together we still make damn cute kids. My DNA is just that good ya'll.)

Name: Braoke
Papa: Barack Obama
"There was no cigar
used in the making of this baby"

Name: Princess Brilliam
Royal Father: Prince William
"Mummy and Daddy have
blond hair and blue eyes-
something's fishy here."

Name: Bronan
Daddy: Conan O'Brien
"I get my looks from my mom"

Name: Brelsea
Parent: Chelsea Handler
"I woke in Vegas next to Chelsea Handler-
and all I got was this baby."

Name: Brac
Pops: Zac Effron
"No children were hurt during the making
of this baby... except Mr Effron
(but he liked it)."

I have to give props to morphthing.com for making it so easy to make all these adorable babies. I barely felt a thing!

A cure for the baby shower blues



Boys, I know exactly how you feel

I had yet another baby shower to attend and it's always a worry because I never know how I'm going to react until I'm there. I never want the mamma-to-be to feel weirded out or guilty over my own hardships- so I try not to let the tears flow during a party (I save that mess for my husband to clean up later). As I mentioned in another post, I discovered alcohol at baby showers is not my friend in this matter. But alcohol in massive amounts the night before is my new BFF!

I was concentrating so hard on not upchucking my previous night's partying- I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself. Hallelujah! The only downside- anyone at the shower that knew of my fertility troubles probably thought my lowered head, tummy holding, barely-enough-energy-to-pick-up-my-water-glass behavior was because I was sulky and depressed. But, alas, no, I was only massively hungover and trying not to spew on the mamma-to-be's pink shoes.

If sugar is the devil... send me straight to hell

thank you, sir, may I have another

The best medicine for infertility... sugar! (and wine- but I'll get to that later). I'm not one to half-ass something so if I want sugar, I go all the way.
My mother and I discovered the recipe for Oh, God! pie while reading the cheeky Southern humor book, The Sweet Potato Queen's Book of Love. The pie's official name is Coconut Caramel Pie, but they call it Oh, God! because that's all you say as you add one decadent ingredient after another.

You'll gain five pounds just by reading the ingredient list. But it is worth it!

"Coconut Caramel Pie"
(aka Oh, God!)

8 oz thigh-enhancing cream cheese

1 can bum-expanding Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk

16 oz. bulging-belly cool whip

7 oz. shredded coconut

1/2 stick back-boobs butter

1 c. pecans

12 oz. jar of double-chin caramel sauce

Mix cream cheese, condensed milk, & cool whip and place in two pie dishes with crusts.
(To make pie crusts: Mash together 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 stick butter, & 1 cup finely chopped pecans. Bake in oven at 350 for 10 minutes- until it tans)

Put coconut, butter, and pecans onto a cookie sheet and toast it in oven (stir it occasionally and watch that it doesn't burn)

Place coconut and pecan mix on top of pies and pour caramel sauce over the tops.

Lower onto floor and dig in (or freeze for easier cutting and consumption later).

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I'd love more decadent recipes to gobble down. If you've got some, put a link to the recipe (or the whole thing) in the comment section below. I'm gonna get nice and plump once I'm pregnant- might as well get a head start!

28 days in pergatory

"Not take over your life?
Oh, you silly girl!"

When I started down this road of infertility I told myself I would not let it overtake my life. Ha! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, what a fool I was. My life is now measured in 28 day cycles, starting with the first day of my period. 







Cycle without fertility treatment

Daily: Take temperature every morning to track ovulation. Take a regiment of vitamins to get my body ready for a baby.

Once a Week: Acupuncture treatment

Every other day: spend an hour boiling raw herbs for Chinese tea (okay- not everyone does this but I live in LA)


Day 1: First day of my period (this is a sad and frustrating day when you are trying to get pregnant. You want that biyatch to take a nine month holiday!)

Day 9-14: Test ovulation by peeing on a stick 1-2 times a day. Have sex every other day (me likey this part).

Day 13 or 14: Ovulation day. Send dirty sext messages to husband. Maybe throw in a boob shot for good measure. Have sex.

Day 15-28: The waiting game. These two weeks suck! You tell yourself to forget about it but all you do is analyze every little change in your body and Google it to see if it means you're pregnant: wake up one morning craving fried pickles- pregnant! boobs are tender- pregnant! lower back pain- pregnant! crying over hallmark commercial- pregnant! As I near the last days of my cycle, I begin checking the toilet paper every time I wipe for the dreaded red streak- the telltale sign that my period has arrived. Oh, not to mention the pregnancy tests that I begin taking on day 24. I try to resist but I can't! If it were up to me (and they didn't cost $20 a pack- oh, how they rape the wallets of desperate women) I'd take 2 tests a day.

Cycle with fertility treatment (IUI/Clomid/HCG)

Daily: Take temperature every morning to track ovulation. Take a regiment of vitamins to get my body ready for baby.

Once a Week: Acupuncture treatment

Every other day: spend an hour boiling raw herbs for chinese tea (okay- not everyone does this but I live in LA)

Day 1: First day of my period (waaaaah!). Call doctor’s office to make appointment for the following day.



Not exactly what I had in mind when
I said foreplay (vag ultrasound)

Day 2: Go to doctor’s office to have blood drawn (and be stalked by annoying pictures of happy families) to test my baby-making hormones (FSH and estradiol levels). Than I have a vaginal ultrasound.

Day 3-7: Take two clomid pills per day and ready myself for hot flashes and crying spells (and lots of back rubbing by husband).

Day 10: Second vaginal ultrasound to check ovulation and then I bend over for an injection of HCG to stimulate ovulation.

Day 11 or 12: Husband gives his 'donation' at the fertility clinic, which I pick up an hour later and drive to my ObGyn's office where he inserts the spermies directly into my uterus through a thin catheter. Then I rest on the table for twenty minutes giving those spermies a pep talk until I grow bored and then flip through Us Weekly. (Some days I'm fine after the IUI and some days the cramping is so bad I have to rest or lay down for the rest of the day- but it's a good excuse to catch up on Dancing with the Stars or Mad Men!).

Day 13-28: The waiting game. Hate. This. Part. You spend your whole life praying your period arrives each month and then one day, you're doing eveything in your power so it doesn't. It kind of messes with your head.

Go ahead. Make my day.



I have perfect aim

If someone says any of these phrases to me one more time, I won't just be using this gun for sport:

I know a couple that tried for years and as soon as they adopted, they got pregnant!
 
You just need to relax.

We weren't even trying!

Everything happens for a reason.

Maybe you're not ready.

I got pregnant on the first try!

Cuddle fetish

Can't. Breathe.

When I arrive at a party or home where children are present, before I can say hello, a baby has been shoved into my arms. My friends must think I'm so desperate for a baby, I'll take whatever I can get. I do love holding babies but the second the kid starts wailing, I practically throw it back at it's parents.
But recently I was at a gathering where my friend brought over her newborn baby boy. He was a calm child who cuddled into my chest like a warm blanket.
As I held him, one of the girl's at the gathering informed me that when you hold a baby the "cuddle hormone", oxytocin, is released and it can stimulate pregnancy hormones. I held that child so tight to me, that when his mother finally pealed him off my chest, his hair was matted to his head in a sweaty mess. I had been holding onto that child for dear, fertile life!
Poor kid. I probably gave him some sort of complex... or an early boob fetish.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful

I'm vain. I'm so vain that I make sure my girly bits are nice and pretty for my ObGyn. He probably can't tell one vag from the next after all his years staring between women's legs but I always want to look my best- no matter who I'm in front of (or what's in front of them).

Tears of joy...

Baby showers. When you're trying to get knocked up they suddenly become a very different beast. I didn't realize this until I went to my first baby shower a year after we started trying.

It was all going great: a beautiful day, a lovely lunch around the pool, margaritas flowing... it was my kind of party.
Three margaritas later, things began to shift. As the mother-to-be began opening her gifts: little shoes, little clothes, little hats... my mood went into a downward spiral. I sucked back tears as I wallowed in my misery. Inner B* was banging her fists on the table and yelling why not me! why not me! why not me! Waaaah!!!! I told her to shut it, drank some water, and quickly recovered.

My lesson: baby showers, alcohol, and infertility do not mix.






*Inner B: My subconscious voice. She likes to speak up and tell the truth of what I'm really feeling and thinking- especially when it is not PC or the 'right' way to think.

Pearl necklace

Proceed with caution

My husband and I decided to move forward with our fertility journey and began treatment using clomid, HCG, and IUI. In layman's terms: clomid is a pill which increases my baby-making hormone levels, HCG is an injection in my bum which induces ovulation, and IUI means my husbands boys are inserted directly into my uterus.

Now that all those exciting descriptions are out of the way... the real experience was quite different.

Taking clomid and receiving the injection was pretty straight forward (on a side note- as I was bent over the table, my pants around my ankles, ready for my injection of HCG, the nurse asked me to please clasp my hands together to prevent me from hitting her. That did not give me a lot of confidence).

Picking up my husbands "washed" sperm (only the best for me!) from the fertility clinic was not as straight forward. The nurse handed me a test tube filled with the goods and told me to stick it between my breasts. So out I walked into the busy city streets with my husbands sperm sticking out of my bra- to keep them at body temperature, I was told. I prayed I would not get into a car accident as I drove to my ObGyn's office. I'm not sure how a shattered vile of sperm would be written up on an accident report.

Momma always said wear clean underwear, she never said anything about clean sperm.

Ladies, our time has come

Since I mentioned it in the previous blog entry, I thought I would quickly expand on why orgasm for both man and woman is improtant for getting pregnant.

Orgasm is important for the man because, duh, how else are we gonna fertalize those eggs.

But the sweet, sweet fact is: it's improtant for a woman to orgasm too! Why? Because when a woman has an orgasm, her uterus contracts and "sucks up" the semen as it is released. Woot! This is still only a theory in the medical field... but I won't tell my husband if you don't.