We had our long weekend cabin getaway last week and yes I'm just getting a round to posting about it, sorry! My spa day the Friday before was cancelled back when we found out about my FIL going into hospice care. But when we looked into cancelling the cabin we discovered that we would have had to give 30 days notice to get a refund. And we found out about Hammer's dad 27 days before our getaway.
After everything that happened it really was a well deserved retreat. We spent most of our day snuggled up in front of the fireplace. The bedroom was in the loft so that when you lay in bed you could still look out into the woods from the full wall of windows. And to make up for the cancelled spa day Hammer and I had a couples massage. Of course Hammer is incredibly ticklish so every once and a while I would hear him giggling, it was too funny. And while it wasn't the snowy cabin in the woods like we hoped for it was still a great time.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
One for my Homie
I'm back after a nice hiatus of trying to wrap our mind around another family loss. Thank you all for your kind comments and condolences. (Except for that last comment which apparently links you to As.ian Por.n, classy. And it is not Tickintime's comment, thank you sweetie!) Because of the last tasteless comment I'll be putting on comment moderation. I don't know of any other way to reduce the spam. If anyone knows how to delete a comment I'd love to get that one off of my last post. For some reason I'm just uncomfortable having that on the post announcing my FIL's passing, imagine that. {I figured it out!}
On another note, I thought I'd share a photo with you all. Now normally when people start IVF cycles they posts photos of all their meds. For us the process will start about 4-5 months in advance and this time it has nothing to do with me, yea! Hammer will be downing around 5-6 antioxidant pills each day in the hopes that it will reduce the DNA fragmentation in his sperm allowing us to have a chance at a successful IVF cycle, which will also be our last IVF cycle some time in late spring. When I know the date I'll set up a ticker but until then we're still a bit up in the air with everything that has happened lately. So that was a long introduction just to say here is the picture of all of Hammers pills, minus one that I forgot to order:
On another note, I thought I'd share a photo with you all. Now normally when people start IVF cycles they posts photos of all their meds. For us the process will start about 4-5 months in advance and this time it has nothing to do with me, yea! Hammer will be downing around 5-6 antioxidant pills each day in the hopes that it will reduce the DNA fragmentation in his sperm allowing us to have a chance at a successful IVF cycle, which will also be our last IVF cycle some time in late spring. When I know the date I'll set up a ticker but until then we're still a bit up in the air with everything that has happened lately. So that was a long introduction just to say here is the picture of all of Hammers pills, minus one that I forgot to order:
What he will be taking is the following:
-Vitamin C 200 mg
-Vitamin E 400 IU
-L Acetyl-Carnitine 1 gram
-L Carnitine 1 gram (morning and evening)
-Pycogenol 100 mg
-Co Q-10 75 mg
I looked into Proxeed which is a powdered form of all of these plus some others but Hammer wasn't into drinking his vitamins. Plus there have been studies on high levels of zinc and selenium having a negative effect on sperm DNA and these levels are found in Proxeed. So instead I read up on a few studies that were having positive effects and used those antioxidants and levels.
That and I read an interesting study recently which said that rather than abstaining from se.x for 3 days to increase sperm count, men with high sperm DFI should actually have se.x for 7 days leading up to ovulation. The study showed an average of a 10% reduction in DFI levels. Aside from probably having a tired Mrs. Hammer were going to give this a try as well. I know TMI but if it can help someone out there reading then it's worth it.
-Vitamin C 200 mg
-Vitamin E 400 IU
-L Acetyl-Carnitine 1 gram
-L Carnitine 1 gram (morning and evening)
-Pycogenol 100 mg
-Co Q-10 75 mg
I looked into Proxeed which is a powdered form of all of these plus some others but Hammer wasn't into drinking his vitamins. Plus there have been studies on high levels of zinc and selenium having a negative effect on sperm DNA and these levels are found in Proxeed. So instead I read up on a few studies that were having positive effects and used those antioxidants and levels.
That and I read an interesting study recently which said that rather than abstaining from se.x for 3 days to increase sperm count, men with high sperm DFI should actually have se.x for 7 days leading up to ovulation. The study showed an average of a 10% reduction in DFI levels. Aside from probably having a tired Mrs. Hammer were going to give this a try as well. I know TMI but if it can help someone out there reading then it's worth it.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Is it safe to come out yet?
I've been hoping for 2009 to come to a close for the last few weeks. It's been a really rough year and the rough patches are not over yet. Hammer's dad continues to be with us but is very frail. We don't know if we have days, weeks or months ahead of us. Dying from lung disease can be a slow process. I am thankful that hospice is doing their best to keep him comfortable. We had a good visit, he was alert enough for us to talk to him AND he got to see his favorite college football team play and WIN on Friday. We were praying they would win just so that he could see it one more time. We may have to postpone our weekend getaway, understandably so, but he didn't want us to, we'll see.
While we were driving down to SC we got the call from our RE with the results of the sperm DNA fragmentation test. They weren't good, they weren't horrible either but it answered more questions for us. With the test they want the results to be 30% fragmentation or less...we were 48%. It means we may be able to overcome some of the fragmentation with vitamins but it explains why our 3 day transfers looked good but never worked. Sperm DNA rears it's ugly head after day 3 and I've never made enough eggs to get to a 5 day transfer. It also explains the blighted ovum i.e. miscarriage as well as our lack of natural pregnancy. When you are already working with low sperm counts and half of them are retarded it's not going to happen on your own - *sigh*
This next cycle we need more eggs, ICSI and lots of prayers. Honestly at this point I'm not really sure that IVF is going to work for us. (I know it's totally not positive) But we are going to give this one last shot. Technically we really only had one good cycle so far since the first one was a bust and really should have been cancelled. I just don't know how many more times we want to go through this though. We really just want to be parents and at least with adoption you have a really good change of becoming a family versus IVF's average 40% success rate.
AF arrived today so at least I know my body is starting to work again but at this point we have not even set a tentative date for the next cycle. We don't feel like we can plan anything with Hammer's dad right now. All we know is that Hammer will have to be on vitamins for ~3-4 months in advance so we have some time. And taking a rest is a good thing.
2010 I really hope you are better to us than your older sibling.
While we were driving down to SC we got the call from our RE with the results of the sperm DNA fragmentation test. They weren't good, they weren't horrible either but it answered more questions for us. With the test they want the results to be 30% fragmentation or less...we were 48%. It means we may be able to overcome some of the fragmentation with vitamins but it explains why our 3 day transfers looked good but never worked. Sperm DNA rears it's ugly head after day 3 and I've never made enough eggs to get to a 5 day transfer. It also explains the blighted ovum i.e. miscarriage as well as our lack of natural pregnancy. When you are already working with low sperm counts and half of them are retarded it's not going to happen on your own - *sigh*
This next cycle we need more eggs, ICSI and lots of prayers. Honestly at this point I'm not really sure that IVF is going to work for us. (I know it's totally not positive) But we are going to give this one last shot. Technically we really only had one good cycle so far since the first one was a bust and really should have been cancelled. I just don't know how many more times we want to go through this though. We really just want to be parents and at least with adoption you have a really good change of becoming a family versus IVF's average 40% success rate.
AF arrived today so at least I know my body is starting to work again but at this point we have not even set a tentative date for the next cycle. We don't feel like we can plan anything with Hammer's dad right now. All we know is that Hammer will have to be on vitamins for ~3-4 months in advance so we have some time. And taking a rest is a good thing.
2010 I really hope you are better to us than your older sibling.
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