Panda IUIs on the WWW

Why do I always miss super cool stuff like this?  Apparently the National Zoo live tweeted an IUI of the female panda there.

"Sunday night, Mei Ziang was inseminated with thawed semen collected from Tian Tian in 2005. Zoo staff will monitor Mei Xiang's hormone levels in the coming months and conduct ultrasounds to see if she is pregnant.

Mei Xiang and Tian Tian have successfully produced one cub, named Tai Shan, who was born July 9, 2005. He now lives in China."

How sad is it I'm jealous that they already have 1 cub from a previous IUI?  I want a cub too, dammit!

NIAW 2012

This blog has existed for 4 years now & for the past 3 years I have marked National Infertility Awareness Week.  This year's theme is "Don't Ignore Infertility".  For those of us who are in the midst of the battle, infertility is impossible to ignore.  Pregnant women are everywhere.  Children are everywhere.  Those tacky stick figure families on the back windows of SUVs are everywhere.

If you are reading this blog, it is likely you yourself are infertile or love someone who is.  If you're not "out" as an infertile in real life, I would implore you to take this opportunity to come out of the proverbial closet via social media or some other outlet.  In order for infertility to not be ignored, we as a community need to talk about our experiences to educate others.  Don't be afraid; don't be ashamed: be heard!

Infertility goes Bollywood

One of the coming attractions @ the local theater which screens Indian movies.  Even though it's in Hindi, I'm sure you'll get the idea.  Not sure how I feel about it:

House hunting while infertile

We're once again actively looking @ houses after putting it on the back burner last year when we had to buy a new car & make an emergency trip to India. While we love our rental (2 bed 1 bath with a full basement & side yard; it's a duplex on a dead end street & our awesome landlord lives next door) we could totally buy with what we pay in rent. We're looking @ 3/4 bed, 2 bath houses so we're not talking mansions, btw.  And most of them are estate or short sales since we're not in a super hurry (our lease isn't actually up til February) & we want the most bang for our buck possible

Still, every house we look @ makes me sad when I look @ all the empty bedrooms & big yards, especially when the realtor makes a comment about things like "and the yard's plenty big enough for a swingset". Gee, thanks for the reminder we may never have an opportunity to put up a swingset. I guess the fact we're a married couple in our 30s = we must have kids or pregnant by now.  And of course my favorite house of the 8 we looked at this past Sunday was right behind an elementary school.  Infertile gated communities, anyone? 

I've toyed with the idea of looking @ condos since we technically don't need a ton of room for the 2 of us. But a yard is kind of needed since we have a dog. Plus, the condo market is way overpriced here.  And then there's that annoying little voice that whispers "the next IVF might just work & then you'd need more room".  Ah hope, you are so annoying sometimes! 

Stoopid uterus

Well, Aunt Flo arrived on Tuesday as scheduled so goodbye any hope of a miracle 2012 baby.  I'm so sick of this shit.  Why do I have to have my period ever 4 weeks?  I'm actually kind of jealous of the infertile women I know who don't get to ride the cotton pony without the help of Provera.  I'd love an irregular cycle so I don't have a clue when I ovulate (even if it is a crappy egg) & can therefore not have a clue when I may or may not be having sex during fertile time with my husband.  

I'm kind of looking forward to menopause so there is no hope left.  Isn't that sad?  Of course, that could be another 2 decades away.  Great.  My mother who turned 56 the day I turned 33 (yes, we share the same birthday; very cool)  still has the same random cycles she's always had.  Granted they're a bit more random than usual, but even with them she had no problems getting pregnant. Her mother (my grandma) did the usual Irish Catholic thing & popped out 7 kids before her periods just randomly stopped in her mid 40s.  So maybe I've only got a decade left?  And let's not forget my sister, the one who is 6 mos pregnant, has never paid attention to her cycles, so naturally she got pregnant with no effort at all.  I, on the other hand, have had 27-28 day cycles since coming off BCPs 4 years ago & am still not pregnant.  

I hate my uterus.

Infertility (as seen on TV)

Know how Facebook always annoingly suggests you buy a fertility monitor or better yet, diapers whenever you post anything about infertility?  Well, I got a new one the other day.  Apparently someone is shopping around a script for a TV pilot called Fertile Ground:

An original comedy that revolves around a brilliant, arrogant fertility doctor who doesn't like her patients. In fact, she only recognizes them by their vaginas.

... She co-owns a successful fertility clinic and she’s competitive, successful but her big blind spot is men and the latest has just taken all of her money and moved to Costa Rica. But he’s left her a little present. We find out at the end of the pilot episode that the least motherly woman on the planet is pregnant.

So she's stuck in a job she used to love but she’s broke, burned out and knocked up. As she decides whether or not to keep the baby, she starts to realize that her patients are actual people she has her hands on, literally and figuratively, and that her co-workers and even her patients are kind of like a dysfunctional family of sorts. Something she’s never really thought about. The staff loves to antagonize her, her passive aggressive clinic partner wants her job, the new doctor wants to sleep with her, etc, etc.

Because of her own struggle, she starts to open up to her own quirky patients that appear in their own three-episode arc about their absurd, hilarious but sometimes achingly real experiences.

This has the potential to be very bad (or very good, but I don't have much hope) should it ever make it on air.  Has anyone else heard about this?

Happiness this year?!?!?!

A recent suvey states that 33 is the happiest age to be.  One of the researchers who conducted the study found that "The age of thirty-three is enough time to have shaken off childhood naivety and the wild scheming of teen-aged years without losing the energy and enthusiasm of youth," she said. "By this age innocence has been lost, but our sense of reality is mixed with a strong sense of hope, a 'can do' spirit, and a healthy belief in our own talents and abilities". 

Innocence lost?  Check.  Mixed sense of reality?  Check again.  Strong sense of hope?  Sure, every so often for a fleeting second.  Then, I get my period.  Ha!  Eff you, universe. 

But in all seriously, I really do hope I am happier @ 33 than I am @ 32.  Or was @ 29, 30 or 31.  Ah, to go back & be the naive 28 year old, newly married, without a clue her lady garden had slugs (or whatever) & there would be no flowers blooming without some major treatments with Miracle-Gro if she was lucky!