I could write my own tribute to Paul Newman, but this one works very well. (I had no idea he was color blind.) A career and a professionalism to which every actor should asipre.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
"For a moment there I thought we were in trouble"
I could write my own tribute to Paul Newman, but this one works very well. (I had no idea he was color blind.) A career and a professionalism to which every actor should asipre.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Quick Home Update
The move went pretty well on Saturday, despite the fact that Saturday was the only day of the week that it rained, and it rained all day long. We had some good help and were able to get everything in the new home by 2 pm. Now is the joy of unpacking. And a quick run back to the old apartment this morning to pick up the last two pieces that are going to get recycled and do a check out inspection with the property manager. And more unpacking. And trying to get the Ikea desk set up that kicked Jessie's and my butts last night. (I would really like a desk so I do not have to type further updates on Trish's laptop while sitting on the floor.)
With each additional piece that we get out of a box and set up, this new place starts to feel more and more like home. We still look at each other every now and then with a deer in the headlights look and ask "This is really our house?" but both of us are adjusting to it. Now if I can just get a good night's sleep before having to go back to work tomorrow....
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Closed
There were a few hiccups and speed bumps along the way, but we finally closed on the house. Trish and I now own a home. Well, a small percentage of a home, the bank owns most of it. And in between bouts of celebration and holy $*##! what did we do moments, was packing... and more packing, and more packing.
It all feels a little surreal. I suppose reality will kick in on Saturday when we are moving our stuff in. (Anyone who wants to lend a hand on Saturday morning, come on over. It will be a hoot-en-nanny.)
I just need to say again, it would not have happened without the deep generosity of brother Tom and his wife Kathryn. Thanks, guys.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Blog Love
Added a couple of friends to the blog roll on the right. Why did I do that? Well, the "Friends" section really is just that, friends of mine, not friends of friends. (And, yes, I have more friends than that, smart aleck. Very few of them write web logs.) And I realized the other day that the two new additions have become friends in their own right, instead of people I know through Todd.
Raechelle and Todd are dating, but check out her site anyway, because it is witty and sharp. Anyone who has clicked through to Todd's blog will know that whenever the two of them write about each other, they are cutesy as all get out. I can tell you, in person it is even more so. They give Trish and me a run for our money in the cutesy couple category.
Kayleigh is Todd's daughter. At 11 years old, her writing is funny and offbeat and insightful. And it is full of great pearls of zen wisdom like:
So check them out.
Raechelle and Todd are dating, but check out her site anyway, because it is witty and sharp. Anyone who has clicked through to Todd's blog will know that whenever the two of them write about each other, they are cutesy as all get out. I can tell you, in person it is even more so. They give Trish and me a run for our money in the cutesy couple category.
Kayleigh is Todd's daughter. At 11 years old, her writing is funny and offbeat and insightful. And it is full of great pearls of zen wisdom like:
"Scientists are also going to do an experiment in which they will send one giant bullet-bomb-thing at another giant bullet-bomb-thing and either the two will explode into a giant explosion that will be all over the news, or the entire Earth will be sucked into a giant white hole in space, and time will start all over again.You know what I say? I say that that is the STUPIDEST EXPERIMENT EVER!! Don't say, "Hey, I'm curious. Can we make the world end?" and then try out that experiment."
So check them out.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
God Wrestling
A few months back, Bill gave a sermon focusing on the story of Jacob wrestling with God. The extreme nutshell summation is that God not only encourages us to grapple with God in our pain and fear, but blesses the effort. This idea has been a huge help since then, especially since the bad news last week. There is no promise of an answer to all the questions you might have, and I certainly have not found any recently. What I do find in the act of engaging, challenging, wrestling with God is a strong sense of being loved. And it is amazing to me how much that helps.
By the by, a world champion God wrestler is my friend Amy, who struggles with reconciling her fundamental upbringing to a secular world and her own needs and desires. While I disagree pretty strongly with her self characterization, I greatly admire the courage she shows in the continual striving. I have found great inspiration in that. Thanks, Amy.
By the by, a world champion God wrestler is my friend Amy, who struggles with reconciling her fundamental upbringing to a secular world and her own needs and desires. While I disagree pretty strongly with her self characterization, I greatly admire the courage she shows in the continual striving. I have found great inspiration in that. Thanks, Amy.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Company
I received a response to my post on the recent turns in our conception struggles, and I have to say it feels good to share. It is a couple we have never met (thanks, Internet!) who are having a similar struggle. Just being able to talk to someone who not only instantly gets what you are going through but has experienced something similar is huge. Not that friends and family have been unsupportive; far from it. But talking about infertility with those who have never struggled with it adds to the sense of isolation. Just a few e-mail exchanges with people who have struggled with it helps me feel connected. It feels really damn good.
I was starting to make progress on this before connecting with the other couple, which is good. (I will post a more detailed follow up later.) That combined with the fact that we made a good start on packing last night, that this morning our property management company has given up on trying to nickel and dime us as we leave our apartment, and that I re-connected with a good friend last night has got me in a good mood. Now if I can just hold on to it while I enter all of my time for August before the end of the day....
I was starting to make progress on this before connecting with the other couple, which is good. (I will post a more detailed follow up later.) That combined with the fact that we made a good start on packing last night, that this morning our property management company has given up on trying to nickel and dime us as we leave our apartment, and that I re-connected with a good friend last night has got me in a good mood. Now if I can just hold on to it while I enter all of my time for August before the end of the day....
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Careful what you wish for
UPDATE: This post has taken a few people by surprise as it is more personal than others I have done. So, just a heads up that there is some information here about me that you probably would not get in casual conversation. But hey, I posted it so it is all right by me if you read it.
I was not going to post about this, but I realized if I don't talk about it more, it will kick around in my head and drive me absolutely nuts, so....
I think I mentioned before that one of the frustrating things about our infertility struggles is that we did not know why it was happening. Testing on both of us had come back normal and the docs were calling it unexplained infertility (which is apparently pretty common). Well that was then. Now, it turns out there is a cause, and that cause is me.
In February of 2007 I had sperm testing done which showed that I was essentially within normal limits. The number was twice the normal but the morphology (shape) was low. The docs felt that these basically off set. (For the record normal number is at least 20 million and normal morphology is at least 14% normally shaped. My original morphology was 8%.) As we went on and continued to struggle, our docs thought is was best to see if we could raise the morphology number up to help increase the chances.
I went in for a re-test last month to see what effect changes in my diet, lowering my stress levels and my vitamin and herb regimen were having. In almost every category my numbers improved, except the one we were trying to increase. My morphology dropped to 2% (abnormal is 4% or lower).
If you want to look at it from a strict numbers standpoint, normal would be 2,800,000 regularly shaped sperm (14% of 20 million); previously I had tested at 3,280,000 normally shaped (8% of 41 million) and now am topping out at 820,000 (2% of 41 million). You look at those numbers and the first thought is, but all it takes is one! And yes, no one is saying it is impossible, just extremely unlikely that we can conceive on our own.
This has rattled me. Hard. Kicked to the nuts with a steel toed boot kind of hard. I feel ashamed, inadequate, angry... hell pick a negative emotion and I have expressed it in the past 24 hours. I feel like God is telling me I am not good enough to be a father. I am jealous of all these... these... these chowder heads who get to have kids of their own with no thought for the consequences of it. I feel guilty. I know, I know. This is not my fault. But that is very easy to say and hard to feel, especially after having comforted Trish's broken heart month after month after month after month after month. (And for the record, the only one feeling that way is me; Trish has made it crystal clear to me that is not the case for her.)
And we soldier on. I am busy pestering my primary doc for a referral a specialist (and missing our old primary doc very badly since he retired). We need more information. We need to know our options. From what we have read to date there is no real treatment for low morphology, aside from what we have been trying (diet, stress reduction, etc. and look how well that turned out). The good news is that while low morphology makes it very hard for the sperm to get to the egg, once there it does not cause issues (nothing wrong with the genetic material; just a funny shaped delivery system).
And while we are doing all of that, I am busy flipping God the bird. We have some issues, God and me. Time to work those out.
In the meantime, if anyone reading along has struggled with male factor infertility, I would really appreciate hearing from you. (Not like I have a ton of readers, but one can hope.) Drop me an e-mail if you would, because I could really stand hearing how you coped with all of it.
**************
I was not going to post about this, but I realized if I don't talk about it more, it will kick around in my head and drive me absolutely nuts, so....
I think I mentioned before that one of the frustrating things about our infertility struggles is that we did not know why it was happening. Testing on both of us had come back normal and the docs were calling it unexplained infertility (which is apparently pretty common). Well that was then. Now, it turns out there is a cause, and that cause is me.
In February of 2007 I had sperm testing done which showed that I was essentially within normal limits. The number was twice the normal but the morphology (shape) was low. The docs felt that these basically off set. (For the record normal number is at least 20 million and normal morphology is at least 14% normally shaped. My original morphology was 8%.) As we went on and continued to struggle, our docs thought is was best to see if we could raise the morphology number up to help increase the chances.
I went in for a re-test last month to see what effect changes in my diet, lowering my stress levels and my vitamin and herb regimen were having. In almost every category my numbers improved, except the one we were trying to increase. My morphology dropped to 2% (abnormal is 4% or lower).
If you want to look at it from a strict numbers standpoint, normal would be 2,800,000 regularly shaped sperm (14% of 20 million); previously I had tested at 3,280,000 normally shaped (8% of 41 million) and now am topping out at 820,000 (2% of 41 million). You look at those numbers and the first thought is, but all it takes is one! And yes, no one is saying it is impossible, just extremely unlikely that we can conceive on our own.
This has rattled me. Hard. Kicked to the nuts with a steel toed boot kind of hard. I feel ashamed, inadequate, angry... hell pick a negative emotion and I have expressed it in the past 24 hours. I feel like God is telling me I am not good enough to be a father. I am jealous of all these... these... these chowder heads who get to have kids of their own with no thought for the consequences of it. I feel guilty. I know, I know. This is not my fault. But that is very easy to say and hard to feel, especially after having comforted Trish's broken heart month after month after month after month after month. (And for the record, the only one feeling that way is me; Trish has made it crystal clear to me that is not the case for her.)
And we soldier on. I am busy pestering my primary doc for a referral a specialist (and missing our old primary doc very badly since he retired). We need more information. We need to know our options. From what we have read to date there is no real treatment for low morphology, aside from what we have been trying (diet, stress reduction, etc. and look how well that turned out). The good news is that while low morphology makes it very hard for the sperm to get to the egg, once there it does not cause issues (nothing wrong with the genetic material; just a funny shaped delivery system).
And while we are doing all of that, I am busy flipping God the bird. We have some issues, God and me. Time to work those out.
In the meantime, if anyone reading along has struggled with male factor infertility, I would really appreciate hearing from you. (Not like I have a ton of readers, but one can hope.) Drop me an e-mail if you would, because I could really stand hearing how you coped with all of it.
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