Seeing green

Do you ever see green?

I know I do when I see a pregnant woman or a mother holding a newborn. But over the coarse of the last year or so I have learned a lot about envy. I know we have heard a million times how it is poisonous. How it can kill any relationship. Well now I am finally starting to really get it.

DH and I do ok financially. We have good jobs and both work full-time. We have been savers from the get-go and have been able to afford things other cannot simply by not living paycheck to paycheck. We recently purchased a new home. Well now it seems we are surrounded by envy. We got a great deal and are paying a fraction of what we were paying for our old mortgage. (And this new house is more than twice its size. Gotta love the California home market.) My best friend is perhaps the most envious of our new digs. It has really put a strain on our relationship. When she says something about how jealous she is of our new house I quickly point out that she does have 4 beautiful children and I would trade her. But is that really the way to continue a friendship. We have a new couch but you can get pregnant any time you want. Have any of you experienced similar situations with friends or family?

Hope...

...that is what the last five years have taken from me. Today AF was due and she hasn't come. Not even an inkling of her knocking at my door. Five years ago I would have ran to the drug store and bought a big box of HPT's. I would've called my husband to tell him I was late. I even would have browsed the net for early pregnancy symptoms and read up on what to expect in the first trimester...

Now I know that she is late but will be here soon enough. I know that this month will not be "the month". I know my nausea, fatigue, thirst, etc. are not early pregnancy symptoms. I know I am not pregnant.


On the flip side, these past five years have taught me to value AF because she means we have another chance. I have learned to enjoy intimacy with my husband because, for us, it will not produce a child. I have gained a broader understanding of the human body and what a wonder it is that anyone gets pregnant by accident!

Taking the good with the bad is all any of us can do in our situations and pray that hope is not gone forever.

A decision

We are going to consult with Clinic #2. Thank you to all you wonderful ladies for your input. I want to schedule it for no later than September so we can get the ball rolling before the end of the year. Clinic #3 is still in the back of my mind, but 3+ hrs each way is a bit much. So for now we will check out #2 and see how we feel about the RE's in that office.

I am concerned about feeling like a number, but we wont know if we don't consult with them. Lots of wonderful women have said great things about them.

As for the loan, we are still kind of up in the air. I really think it would give us peace of mind. (No we have NEVER borrowed money from my parents.) So we would owe them, but the extra interest the 401k would charge my mom would go directly into her account, so it would increase the amount. We are going to save like crazy and see what we can come up with in the next few months. Time just goes by so quickly!!

A loan??

One thing I love about having an anonymous blog is I can be totally honest about things that are happening in my life. Especially things I so desperately need advice about. Like what happened Saturday night...

DH and I went to see Transformers with some friends. Saturday night. I took my phone out to turn the ringer off and my mom was calling me. I told her we were getting ready to watch a movie and usually she would say, "Oh, ok. Well call me later." This time she proceeded to talk, so I knew something was up. She told me that she has a retirement account she wants to pull $9k dollars out of so we can get the "baby show" on the road. She can pull it out without penalties as long as it is for an emergency. We would pay her back over the next few months. I told her no way! She said she wanted me to talk it over with DH and call her back. So as we waited for the previews to start I told him about it. He said no way. I was sad, but relived at the same time. He said he would rather take out an infertility loan. I called her to tell her our decision. She said, "Well tell him he better hurry up or I am just going to take out the money anyway."

Now the more time I have had to think about it, the more I want to do it. We are about 5-6 months away from having all our money saved. That is IF we do everything right. This way we could do it now and just pay my mom with the money we were going to save. My mom will not hold anything over our heads, she is wonderful. She just desperately wants grandchildren, and she knows how much we want to be parents. My brother and his wife have a 1 year old daughter who my mother adores, but my sister-in-law is not the kindest person. Plus they live in Utah and we get to see them maybe once a year. So to her it is not "real", for lack of a better word.

What should we do??

Big thank you

Thank you ladies who offered up your opinion on the subject. No decision has been made as of yet. I will keep you posted. I think we will go with Option #3 in Reno. How did you girls come to find your RE?

Advice: Update

I didn't post the SART clinic links before, but here they are now.

Option #1

Option #2

Option #3

Please tell me what you think...

Advice needed

We are fortunate to be in a location that has quite a few RE's within a 2 hour drive. The closest is 65 miles away. The hard part is selecting the RE that is right for us.

Option #1: The one we had our first consult with Dr. Know-it-all, is the closest and we have family that reside in the this location. So when I am having daily bw/us I can rely on someone to be with me and a place to crash so I don't have to travel back and forth daily if I would prefer not to make the trip. Problem I he is not my favorite and doe not have super good stats according to the SART report. [2007 report: <35 - 17 cycles - 5 live births]

Option #2: The RE clinic that is 1.5 hours away in the Bay Area. They are a large clinic and have descent stats on the SART report. On the bulletin board I belong to lots of women recommended them. They are expensive, but are offering a 25% discount for IVF. [2007 report: <35 - 62 cycles - 32% live birth]

Option #3: The RE that is 3 hours away. I know no one in this town and am not quite sure how all the logistics would work out. I fell drawn to this clinic for some reason. His clinic is fairly priced and has a very kind staff. I have a close friend that cycled there and ended up with triplets from her first cycle 5 years ago, we both have severe MFI. He has 100% success with MFI diagnosis for 2007. Now he did only do 8 total cycles of <35 age group.

So my fellow bloggers I need your help!! I'm not sure which RE to choose from. I am so confused. What would you do??

Bad blogger I know

Sorry I have been MIA for a bit. We moved into our new home last Saturday and to say we have been busy is an understatement! Plus, I wanted to have everything painted before we moved in. And painting in June in the California heat is not fun. I don't know what I was thinking!! Now it feels good to have the downstairs done, and I am grateful I did it. We also had our new couch delivered! Oh how I love it. Here is a quick glimpse...

The nice thing is every section is separate, so it can be as big or small as you want. Ours is larger than what they have pictured here. We have gone a few months without a couch. (I got really tired of our old one, so one day I just stuck it out on our front lawn with a sign. It was gone within an hour. Our small Ikea loveseat was all we were left with.) When we had our offer accepted on the new home I told DH the first thing we were going to do is buy a new couch. We looked for a few weeks and finally found this one. Now we can have guests over again!