Midday Naptime Dreams...

I need to get this out of my head and onto "paper" just in case I forget

This morning my daughter woke up extremely early, so around 7am I laid her down for a nap, and I came downstairs for a nap myself (which is super unusual for me). While I was sleeping I had the most amazing, vivid, realistic dream that I have had in years...

I can't remember how the dream started exactly but my whole family was in the hospital because my wife was giving birth :-) For some reason her labor started while we were on the postpartum floor (maybe pregnancy complications or something), but once her labor started they needed to move her to Labor & Delivery. Well this hospital was apparently like none other because we had to travel through the entire hospital to get to the labor and delivery ward. The hospital was packed with germy people (of course) and I was trying to shield my wife from all of the stares and people trying to touch her. The nursing staff all seemed very annoyed with my presence, maybe because I am a birthworker, but I can't place why they were so rude to me. Once we got to the L&D floor we got settled in a room, and for some reason I was under the impression that she had an epidural. Kind of out of nowhere all of our family showed up in the room, but no one seemed very supportive. Everyone was doing something else (reading books, checking email, chatting with each other). I was lying behind my wife in the bed rubbing her head and I remember saying why isn't anyone taking any pictures of her labor. My mom said she had her camera in the car but did not make any moves to go get it. Before I knew it my wife was making those "pushy" sounds and I figured she was in transition and baby would be coming soon, so I flipped the covers back and she was CROWNING! She was in the birth zone so I yelled to the nurses that she was pushing but the nurse in the room seemed unphased by the fact that her patient was crowning. With 1 more push I realized this baby was being born right now so I jumped into action and I "caught" our daughter. (I remember thinking in the dream that the 1st baby that I ever caught was my own child how amazing) I placed her on my wife's chest and she had part of the caul (amniotic sac) attached to her still, as a matter of fact it was almost fused to her face for some reason, but the nurse came and removed it which an alcohol pad. None of our family in the room was still excited but my wife and I were over the moon. She was so beautiful and I remember thinking that she looked like our daughter, but in a different way.

And then my wife text me in real life and I woke up...

Crazy stuff right? I am big into dream analysis and I def had to analyze this dream.

Babies & Delivering a Baby: To see a baby in your dream signifies innocence, warmth and new beginnings.  Babies symbolize something in your own inner nature that is pure, vulnerable, helpless and/or uncorrupted. If you dream that the baby is smiling at you, then it suggests that you are experiencing pure joy. To dream that you help to deliver a baby means that you will soon undergo an important life change. You may be making life changes or getting rid of your old habits and ways. The change will begin within you, but will probably require the cooperation of others to be completed. Perhaps there are goals that you regret not being able to achieve. You should allow this child to develop and see if there is some aspect of your life that needs to flourish. To dream of giving or viewing birth represents a flourishing suggestion or notion. It may also symbolize a new start or an anticipated occurrence. If you dream of children that you don't recognize it represents new ideas, or situations that are being encouraged. Something not thought of before. 

Daughter: To dream of having a daughter represents passive ideas, habits, or developments that are being encouraged or allowed to flourish. Situations or aspects of yourself that you are encouraging that have no control or power. A daughter may also reflect the development of situations that give away control or authority to others.

Family: To dream of a family member represents a quality in yourself based on your most honest feelings about them. Ask yourself what memories or feelings stand out the most about them and see how that quality may apply to your own life. Alternatively, it could mean that you are overly dependent on your family, especially if the family members are in your recurring dreams. Consider also the significance of a particular family member or the relationship you have with them. If you dream that your family does not act or appear as they normally are, then it means that you want to distance yourself from them. Or you simply don't understand where they are coming from.

Photographs: To see a picture in your dream symbolizes a mental imprint that remains persistent in your mind. Your actions are irreversible. There is no turning back in what you do. Also consider the pun on "picture this" or "seeing the big picture" in a situation. In particular, if the picture is in black and white picture, then it indicates that you need to consider opposing viewpoints. Alternatively, it may mean that you need to add more color and pizzazz to your life. To dream that you are taking a picture suggests that you need to focus more attention on some situation or relationship. Perhaps, you feel that you need to recapture some past moments in a relationship. Alternatively, taking a picture refers to your desires to hold onto a certain moment in your life. If you are trying to take a picture, but people are standing in your way, then it means that outside influences are not letting you focus on your goals and what you really need to do.

 We are currently going through a point in our lives where change is inevitable and is happening rapidly so that may be playing into all of this. Regardless, my wife was a ROCKSTAR and pushed that baby out in 2 pushes and I may have gotten a glimpse at our future daughter so with or without the dream analysis it was a very powerful dream!

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The Baby is Here!!

I know that I have seriously neglected this Blog but I plan to get back into blogging again now that our precious bundle of joy has arrived!

CD:19 INSEMINATION DAY!!!!!

After days of agonizing and having conversations about the possibilities of multiples and selective reduction we have made our final decision.... we decided to proceed with the ICI this cycle. After going to Acupuncture 3x a week, choking down 40+ pills per day, suffering through the effects of Clomid side effects, and going to the RE 3x a week was too much to just flush down the toilet at the finish line so we decided to sprint to the end! Lately I have been trying to live life by trusting my intuition and this one time that I am so happy that I went with my "gut". So today was a super long day, but it was so MAGICAL! I mean to start off the day was 09/10/11 how cool would that be to tell our child one day that was the day we inseminated! I had to make some serious decisions and adjustments to our schedules to make this insemination a reality. So today happens to be my longest workday that I have in a month, because it is essentially an 11hour day for me with driving and everything. I have to be in Everett (which is 40 miles north of Seattle) by 10am, DP had to be at work at 3, and the Andrology Lab where our spermies were being held was only open from 7am-10am. So we came to the conclusion that we could only inseminate before I went to work, but the problem was that we needed to inform the Andrology lab that we actually needed the sperm. I didn't get a positive OPK until after the office was closed yesterday so we had to tell them this morning. Well apparently they were on their own time because no one showed up at the office until 7:30 at that point I was stressing because we had a 9:00 appt with the Naturopath for the insemination and then I had less than 20 mins to get to Everett. Luckily I was able to get ahold of someone and I jetted to the clinic to pick up the vial at 8:30 they gave me the vial in a styrofoam cup, and all I could think was I bet this is the most expensive thing that has every been in a cupholder LOL!! My DP arrived at the same time as I did Naturopath's office and we waited for the Nauropath to arrive, while waiting I incubated the vial since it was not thawed yet, I also figured that being close to my heart would give them some incentive to want to stick around and fertilize! My naturopath didn't waste anytime getting down to the task at hand, she briefly explained what she was going to do again and then she had me undress from the waist down and hop on the table, which was great because I had dressed up from the waist up for the occasion LOL! Our Naturopath is great because she has wonderful energy and she explains everything that she was doing, so also allowed DP to help! Once she placed the speculum in she proud to announce that my cervix was nice and open and I had a nice "glaze" of egg-white cervical mucus! She asked me if I wanted to see & me being the science freak I am my answer was of course! Well someone had jacked her mirror so I was not going to be able to see it, and then DP had the wonderful idea that she could take a picture for me!! So I now have my wonderful cervix forever frozen in time in a picture! It is not an excellent picture because DP did not want to look LOL! So after that we got down to the insemination process. We inseminated at around 9:00am and after the insemination our Naturopath left us to our own "devices" *giggles* Hey they say an orgasm after insemination helps everything so why not? LOL! It was very akward to be trying to achieve an orgasm in a Dr.s office, but DP was up to the challenge and eventually it happened *blushing*. Afterwards we cleaned up, exchanged a quick kiss and headed our seperate ways back to work. The rest of my day was super hectic yet mellow all at the same time which was great. Mid-way through the day around 2:00) I started having some serious cramping and by early evening I was def in a lot of pain (Someone could have told me how awful Clomid Ovulation was LOL). I am so relieved that we insemmed before I went to work because when I got off at 7 it would have been too late, so it seems like the spermies were there in just enough time to meet the eggies which is even more exciting!! So we are now officially in the 2ww!! I will be at a conference in New York until next Sunday so I am hoping that allows me to keep my mind off everything so I don't have to stress about every twinge. Now I just need to figure out how to temp every morning without getting a lot of questions, since I am rooming with a colleague from work for the conference. 


I will try to check in sometime during the week, but if not then I will see you guys next Sunday!!


In the meantime xxxxBABYDUSTxxxx to all that need it & MANY BLESSINGS!!!

CD18: Positive OPK!!!

The silver lining in this all of this chaos came today. Let's start with the beginning of my day....


So for those of you who have been following the Vlogs/Blog saw that a few days back I made mention of my deceased daughter (I will do a video & post on my backstory in a few days), well our "song" was/is Lovely Day by Bill Withers. It never fails that when I am having a rough day, or I am in deep contemplation about something Lovely Day randomly pops up on my Zune, the radio or Pandora. So in the morning I usually listen to Pandora in the morning, but for the past week or so I have been playing my own playlist via Youtube and my Mp3 player on my phone, this morning however I decided to give Pandora another chance to get their act together (the mobile app for Pandora usually plays one song and then it "loads" for 15 mins). I spent about 10 mins sitting on the side of the bed "nexting" songs and then I decided to switch to my Neo-Soul channel. I LOVE Neo-Soul and it is always soothing to my soul, and being that I had just peed on a stick and I did not have a rise in my LH & my monitor & BBT had essentially flatlined I needed a boost. As I was in the closet I heard the opening bass line to Lovely Day and I literally said out loud "no way that is Lovely Day playing" but low and behold it was! Tears started flowing on the spot, I told Imani (my daughter) Hello and thanked her for comforting Mommy! After that I was on a high! I just kept thinking to myself now I need for my follicles & body to get it together and ovulate already!


I went through the rest of my day dealing with work stuff, trying to tie up loose ends before I leave for NYC on Monday. I tried not to think about, but all day I was thinking "I just need to Ovulate, I just need to Ovulate" of course adding "before Monday" but I went on with my day. When I got home from work DP & I ran a few errands and when we got home I was Googling about the trigger shot. Since we still have the trigger shot here at home I was seriously thinking about having DP trigger me so that we could inseminate on Sunday. 


While I was Googling I felt the urge to pee and I figured while I was there I mineswell test. So I used a 2 month expired OPK and almost instantly a 2nd line popped up, now mind you when I tested at 7am this morning it was stark white, no 2nd line or anything! And here was a 2nd line, I as excited enough about that, so I decided to try a "smiley face" OPK and to my surprise the SMILEY FACE showed up!!! I literally screamed at the top of my lungs and ran downstairs at top speed to show DP!! I was jumping up and down and all DP said was "umm can you get those pee sticks out of my face?" (what a buzzkill LMAO). I re-tested with a fresh (and not expired) OPK and it was positive as well!


After having 3 days of BBT temps still in the pre-O "dip" and I was convinced that I was going to one of the women that just don't ovulate on Clomid which was going to result in a cyst and we would have to sit out, but I am so happy that is something that we don't even have to contend with this cycle. 


We have scheduled our insemination for 9am tomorrow morning with the Naturopath we just need to retrieve our sperm from the RE's Andrology Lab!!! Fingers crossed that we are able to catch at least 1 of those eggies!!


Many Blessings xxxxBABYDUSTxxxx

CD 17: "Super Follciles" Ultrasound Results

So we had our CD17 U/S today and it was not great news. So for those of you who don't know, we had our CD15 Ultrasound on Tuesday after we found out that our follicles were not mature on CD 12. We also found out on CD15 that we had 6 follicles (1 additional since Saturday) and the RE's office was not comfortable with us inseminating this cycle. They had us reschedule to come back today to re-check the follicles in hopes that some of the follicles would stop growing. Well after today's scan it appears that the 6 follicles that we had did not stop growing, in fact they just got larger with 5 being fully mature & 1 trailing behind. The RE's office decided to cancel our cycle and I felt so defeated, but at the same time I was super pissed because when we initially started the cycle the RE just gave me the Clomid and since we were going to try at home they told us to do OPKs and then insem at home, if we didn't get pregnant then come back in and we would do a monitored cycle. Well I pushed to be monitored & triggered and that is how we found out about the 6 follicles. Not to mention, the sonographer was not a pleasant person and I feel that regardless of what my follicles looked like she was hellbent on cancelling our cycle. I know this could be just a case of "don't shoot the messenger", but she really rubbed me the wrong way on Tuesday & today. To add insult to injury they had the nerve to send in an ARNP to tell me my cycle was cancelled and all I could think was "Where the F is my RE? And why isn't she telling me this?" I left the office so mad I could have literally ripped someone's head off, DP luckily sensed this and did not really say anything (since she would have gotten the backlash unintendedly). After we left the office I went through the 5 stages of grief pretty quickly and I came out of that grief fighting. My thought process after leaving the RE was that we were going to insem regardless this cycle and we would have still had 5 follicles so why should we not insem? The 1st call I made was to my (hopefully) Midwife to ask her opinion and then I asked DP if I could call my mom. I broke down and told my mom everything (we had not told anyone but my Queer Conceptions Board & my Vlog/Blog that were even trying again).   My mom said "Go for It" if you get pregnant w/multiples then I will quit my job, move to Seattle, and move in to help (LOL). She told us that we don't want to always think what if, which is EXACTLY what will happen if we don't inseminate this cycle. And if we don't insem and I end up with a cyst (which means I have to sit out another month) I am going to be kicking myself thinking we should have at least tried. And the worst thing would be if we sat out this cycle and then from here on out we only produce 1 or 2 follicles and it takes us multiple cycles to finally get our BFP. So after a lot of mediation and advice from my mom we have decided that we are going to go ahead and do an ICI with our Naturopath and let the chips fall where they may. I know that it is very controversial to go ahead with the insem with that many follicles, but I have seen women with more than I have and still not get pregnant. So we are leaving this all in the Universe's hands. And there is a chance that we may not even ovulate in enough time because my BBT has been stuck in a dip for the past couple of days and some women don't ovulate on Clomid. We will keep watching & waiting....


Until next time... Many Blessings! And xxxxBABYDUSTxxxxx to all that need it!

CD 15: Ovarian Hyperstimulation are you Serious?!?!

So we had our CD15 u/s re-check on the follicles (that were not mature enough on Saturday), and apparently all of my singing to them, the meditations well wishes were too much for my ovaries because I am now on the verge of hyperstimulation.  Here's the breakdown.... A normal woman produces 1 follicle a month, in those rare occasions she releases 2 (resulting in fraternal twins), in a Clomid Ovulation Induced Cycle the average is 2-3 follicles, and with Injectables it is kind of open game. Well none of this was never mentioned as a possible issue at our appointment on Saturday and so the more I think about the more angry I am getting because it would have been better to know that was an option versus being blindsided today.

Here our our numbers from Saturday (the # on the end is the total mm of each follicle): 

L1	16.26	9.27	12.76	mm
L2	13.37	11.09	12.23	mm
L3	12.61	10.77	11.69	mm

1 2 Mean R1 11.65 10.11 10.88 mm  R2 11.79 12.92 12.36 mm

And here are our numbers from today:

L1	20.01	15.83	17.92	mm
L2	11.40	11.23	11.32	mm
L3	17.49	15.13	16.31	mm
L4	19.07	11.10	15.08	mm
L5	16.59	14.50	15.54	mm

R1	17.28	14.01	15.64	mm
R2	18.31	13.90	16.1	mm

And if you are wondering, no your eyes aren't playing tricks on you, there is another magical follicle that has appeared, which has brought our follicle count to 6 and has scared the living crap out of our RE. So the trigger completely went out of the window, and she gave us 2 options 1) Cancel the cycle (or bag the cycle as she said) 2) Come back in on Thursday to check and see if 1 or 2 follicles decide to ovulate on their own. If they continue to grow we have to cancel the cycle or end up with a John & Kate Plus 8 Lesbian Version  We are okay with twins, but we are not okay with 6 kids at one time. 

I am so mad at my body, I feel like it is hellbent against me, and I know that is just my pity party talking, but after the miscarriages and the death of my daughter I feel like a I deserve an effing break! We decided that we are going to go with Option 2 and see what my body does (hopefully it selectively reduces some of those smaller follicles). So now we play the waiting game and hope that my greedy polycystic ovaries O on their own with just 1 or 2 follicles.  That means that I am back to peeing on a stick seriously because we have to rely on the OPKs to tell when we are ovulating with no trigger, if of course all the present follicles don't get their shit together and allow 1 or 2 to shine SHEESH!