"Oh, Baby" Update

First of all, get your filthy mind out of the gutter. (As soon as I do, I know.)

My dear, loving, and most courageous husband has decided to "be (my) Christ" and undergo a most <ahem> delicate procedure to give his beautiful wife (that's me, dumbass) what she desires more than apple pie ala mode.

A baby. Yes, a baby. I said it, or rather wrote it.

My earlier whining and my constant blathering about my biological clock has finally worn him down. That's pretty terrible, isn't it? In some ways I feel sort of guilty and worried about it now. My cajoling (never subtle) has made him throw up his hands? Yikes.

However, I think part of him would also love to see another little one around the house, too. He's such a wonderful father, obviously (and I do not exaggerate) a magnificent husband, and all-around good guy, despite his insecurity about, well, being secure, financially that is. With good reason, of course. We aren't the most frugal people in the world. We tend to spend what we don't actually have sometimes. We aren't the most fiscally responsible people, but we never spend more than we can't back up... later.

Anyway, he revealed to me last night that he was willing to go to bat for me and for our future offspring one last time. For the past few weeks, months, even years, we've considered adoption and in-vitro. I've been talking to a few different adoption agencies lately, and we are not impressed with the procedures, policies, and run-around, not to mention the exorbitant fees some places charge. Domestic adoptions can range from $5000 to (sit down) $50,000. Why the large spread? It depends on everything from cost of the home visit to the cost of medical bills for the birth mother. However, some places nickel and dime potential adoptive parents with paperwork and filing fees. And when I say "nickel and dime," I'm really talking about thousands of dollars for paperwork handling. It's a racket with some of these places. I'm surprised anyone is adopting these days.

We have decided, then, to go the ICSI-IVF method since right after our youngest was born nine years ago, we chose a vasectomy as our method of birth control. For those of you in the blogosphere who aren't fertility-challenged, ICSI is NOT a new television show about crime scene investigators in Indianapolis. It stands for, um... hold on, let me look that one up. Feel free to hum the Jeopardy theme song while I retrieve this information.

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Ewww, I know. Sounds gross, huh? Almost what Dr.Venkman might use on Dana Barrett.

Actually, it is a procedure in which a doctor (OK, if there are any males reading this, you might want to skip the next few sentences or maybe find something to stuff in your mouth before you scream) inserts a needle into the you-know-where to retrieve a single sperm. (Uh huh, told you it might make you scream! Now get your hands off your nether regions before someone sees you.) Then, the sperm is inserted into an egg that has already been retrieved from the ovaries. Now, this is AFTER the woman has undergone injections (possibly for months) to stimulate egg production. (You don't hear women screaming or holding their fallopian tubes, do you, boys?)

Once all this needle stabbing has occurred, the egg and the sperm do a little turn on the petri dish floor - a little love dance - and hopefully, fertilization takes place. This is the IVF (in vitro fertilization) part. Once it does, the fertilized egg goes back into mommy and again, hopefully, implantation takes place. It's a tricky little phenomenon. Most of the time, several eggs and sperm are retrieved at one time so that fertilization of several embryos can occur. A few are implanted at once, just in case; the rest are frozen <brr> for later implantation, if needed.

This is what we are signing on for. OMG. Scared? Hell, yes. But hopeful. Very hopeful.


I have probably never been so excited in my life either, with the exception of learning I was preggers with both of my boys. I love the thought of raising another child with my husband. There is nothing on earth that gives me more pleasure than watching my babies grow and learn. And watching my husband be a father is priceless. He's so loving and tender.

My plan is to continually update this blog as we go on this little journey. Stay tuned. I've got the paperwork to fill out this weekend so that I may fax it to the RRC (Reproductive Resource Center) on Monday. I have to talk to my regular doc as well, to make sure all my ducks are in a row with immunizations, etc. I'm so glad I haven't taken but one sick day this year. We might be spending a few days in waiting and examination rooms in the next few months. YAY!