Servicing the Mare

We had to take our dog Basil to the Vet yesterday. Unfortunately he has several tumors (haemangiosarcoma) on his legs which means the cancer is already in his blood stream and spread has occurred. We took him to a rural/horse vet called Margaret for removal of 1 tumor and about 12 or so smaller masses were found at surgery. She was amazing and very caring given the bad news. Anyway, I digress..............when we arrived to pick Basil up Margaret was trotting a horse around. She informs us the horse had just been "serviced" - aka sexed up by a boy horse and to distract her and stop her from squatting and squirting out all the semen like last time she was keeping her moving. Now the clincher here is the boy horse is worth a lazy 10 million dollars (now that's some expensive sperm right there!!) - lets hope both the mare and I are equally sucessful following our "servicing"!! Tomorrow is my last accupuncture session for this cycle. The aim of this session is to stimulate blood flow to facilitate a cosy environment for the hopefully fertilised egg to nest. If nothing else it will be a good excuse to lay down and relax for an hour.

Yes, Yes, Ooooooo Yes

As I write we hope that all of our young, virile handsome Harry's are making their way to our solo sensual Sally (on the right boys). Ovulation is expected sometime between 12noon and 6pm tonight and one can only hope that some sparks fly a-la diner style when these guys meet up - cue Barry White "Lets get it on".  The insemination itself was pretty quick, but this time I was left laying down for about 15 minutes before being able to leave. This is a new development for us. Kylie suggested maybe the Dr thought we could use some "intimate time" to help things along. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh think again tiger - a clinical setting is hardly conducive to feeling randy let me tell ya. Apparently the laying down part is supposed to help get the little fella's heading in the RIGHT direction. So with 15 minutes to kill Kylie took the opportunity to give the boys a pep talk as to their job at hand and what direction to head in. Lets hope they listened. Now we wait..............arggghhhhh the dreaded two and a half week wait. Lucky for us part of this time will be taken up visiting family and friends in Adelaide - lots of pleasant distractions.

Introducing Handsome Harry and Sensual Sally

Following a suggestion from a very dear friend, this month's egg and sperm have been aptly named Harry and Sally after the movie "When Harry met Sally". Lets hope there is plenty of I'll have what she's having on Thursday afternoon! We had our TV scan today which showed one dominant follicle on the right ovary just waiting for some young handsome swimmers to sweep her off her feet. That said, the Ovidrel injection is scheduled for 6am tomorrow morning and Insemination is booked for 12:15pm Thursday afternoon and hopefully a diner scene similar to the movie ensues.

Tired Musings from Brisvegas

I am down in Brisbane working for the week. A change is as good as a holiday or so they say. I am working predominantly on my own in a small quiet practice which means very little interaction with others and way too much time with myself and my thoughts. Anyways; after my microwave TV dinner last night, I looked at myself in the floor to ceiling mirror opposite to where I was sitting and didn't particularly like what was looking back. I finally saw what Kylie has been seeing for the past few weeks. The shell of my former self. Yes I have lost about 6 kilos (some weight loss was planned when I started PT back in March), but this is more than just weight loss. I look exhausted and somewhat frail. A strained face with sunken pale eyes and colourless cheeks stared back at me. Eeeeeewwwww. I thought to myself - when and why did this happen and  how come I am only seeing this now? All of which I have no definitive answer for at this point. I can only hypothesize and hope that I can work the answer out and make some changes to get the sparkle back in my eyes. While I have had a cold for the past 2 weeks which I am finding hard to shake off and which definately wont be enhancing my looks, Kylie has been saying for weeks that I dont look well and has expressed concern about my appearance. I hadn't seen it until last night(damn that mirror). So how and why do I find myself in this position? One word that springs to mind is STRESS. While I am not a high powered corporate type, I do manage a small group of staff which as most of you will know and understand can be difficult at times. My job(and its stresses) on its own is manageable. However, Kylie seems to think that work combined with the pressure of making a baby may be the perfect cocktail for a living breathing corpse type appearance (me at the mo). The only problem I have with this theory is that I dont feel that stressed about the baby making on a conscoius level. Most of the time I dont feel consumed (on a conscious level) by baby making. So if this is the case and this stress/pressure is on a sub-conscious level, how do I overcome it and "Relax" as so many people recommend?

Kyvo's Korner

Hi All, I know it may appear that I am yet to contribute (in my own words) my feelings on how we are travelling through this journey of planned parenthood, and let me assure you I have been working on a little story for some time now.... but after this 2nd IUI attempt I feel compelled to release my thoughts onto our BLOG for you all...

Some people may think I reserve my emotions, and it may be that I am a little more guarded with how I feel about things. However, I would like to say that I like to live with the motto of the 'glass being half full, rather than half empty' ... (im an optimist) ... never the less i have shed a few tears over our last two attempts that haven't taken...

There is something that I feel being the partner in this situation that I have to be the strong one, the 'rock', so that Pete knows that I will be here and won't fall apart... I do feel incredibly balanced with this position I am in and it has been my choice to play this role.

I have done so much reading over the last few months on positive energy being so important in the process and I also dont want us to have too much focus on 'getting pregnant' as it can build up to be too much pressure. (And this is the last thing I would want for us, especially Pete to be feeling)

So there are just a few words from me, Kylie.... I hope you can understand that this is a journey that we are sharing and I am very much a part... maybe moreso the quiet optimist...

I will look to post my version of our start in this planned parenthood adventure and look forward to your comments.

Here's to our child hopefully being, "Hatched by two chicks"...

Mother Nature 2 - Team NewVoe 0

You would think 300 million good quality sperm with a 5 hr head start combined with 2 eggs would be able to get the job done!!

Not to be this time.

Pissed off, disappointed, guttered - yep - who wouldn't be. There isn't anything anyone can say or do that will lessen how you feel, but it is heartening to know that you have these people in your life who are rooting for you every inch of the way - just as though they are experiencing the journey themselves. Thankyou x

However, at times like these you need to try and look at the big picture. We may have lost this battle, but we haven't lost the war. So after you have your little cry and spend a good 24 hours (or there abouts) feeling sorry for yourself there is nothing else to do, but pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get ready for the next cycle.

With our initial sperm supplies down to 1 vial and a new batch of donors arriving from the US we thought it wise to go shopping as IVF now looks to be a very real prospect for us in 2010. For those of you unfamiliar with purchasing sperm let us enlighten you -  the donor sperm only gets shipped out to Australia every 3 months and it is important to get in early to nab the lad of your choice as all the popular boys sell out quickly. We have been fortunate enough to score ourselves 2 vials of a young college buck. He was our number one pick so we are thrilled. It is not often you get your first choice so it is important to at least have a top 3 to save disappointment. We were going to save both vials of our new donor for IVF, but following this second failed attempt we have decided to use one vial of the newbie for our third and final IUI cycle. We figure a change of sperm may make the difference? At the end of the day it's not going to hurt to try something different.

So, all our Dr's appointments have been made, acupuncture is booked and Chinese herbs and vitamin supplements have been purchased. All that is left to do now is find some new names for this cycle's egg and sperm. Any suggestions?

One more sleep to go

Well, we have been pretty quiet on the blog front these past few weeks. I guess we have tried busying ourselves as best we can to take our minds off the dreaded two week wait. Or in our case, the two and a half week wait (longer cycle!!). The wait has been made somewhat easier with my Mum and Nephew visiting for the past week. While poor 'ol Kyles hasn't had any time off work the rest of us have been ensconced in touristy type stuff the last few days. Mitch and Mum have visited Crystal Creek, The Strand, Riverway and Maggie Island and as their holiday draws to an end so too does our wait. We plan to do a home pregnancy test tomorrow morning to see if our second IUI has been successful. I for one am not feeling particularly confident at this stage. However, let me qualify this. In these two plus weeks I have found myself oscillating between positive feelings of hope which is then followed by my conscious mind trying to convince myself it's most unlikely that this IUI will have been any more successful than the last!! I think its my way of preparing and protecting my hormonal, fragile self for a negative result. That way if the result should be positive it will be a pleasant suprise!! This time tomorrow we will know if mother nature has taken a 2-0 lead over Team NewVoe or if Team NewVoe has triumphed!!