But I do like the message in this article from the Washington Post, John and Kate Plus Health Care. The stress of high-multiples is something that you can only truly appreciate if you have them. Many couples think they would welcome twins, or even triplets into their family. But can you imagine 6 babies at once? As sleep deprived and stressed out as I was with just twins, I cannot even fathom how a couple can manage quads or sextuplets.

Do you think insurance coverage would make the impact the author is suggesting? I do think there is some truth to her message/opinion.

P.S. Thanks to RESOLVE for posting a link to this article via Facebook.

The booklet addresses lifestyle as well as health reasons that cause infertility. Also, it offers tips to deal with stress and talk with your doctor about tests, etc.

For more information visit the Fertility Lifelines In the Know webpage. To get your FREE copy call 1-866-Lets-try (1-866-538-7879).

Twitter about this event too: “June 25 is RESOLVE’s Advocacy Day, visit resolve.org for ways to get involved.”

Become a RESOLVE Fan on Facebook.

For seven weeks I communicated effectively with the medical staff in the NICU. I sat by my daughters’ bedsides and watched their every move and their every breath. I knew the details of their medications, schedule, status, etc. During rounds the doctors would often ask me my opinion about how my daughters were doing that day. They knew that I knew more about my girls than any of the nurses on staff.

A few days after my daughter Copy Cat had surgery she wasn’t eating. Before she had surgery she was having trouble breathing, something we learned that was due to the pain she had because of her illness. After her surgery she was breathing wonderfully. In addition, she was a great pink color and somewhat active. All characteristics lacking when she was ill. The nurses panicked because she wasn’t eating and thought she might be getting sick again. I thought she wasn’t eating because she was tired and her poor little body hadn’t been used to so much food. One of the NNP’s asked me what I thought. I gave her my opinion and they adapted Copy Cat’s feeding based on my feedback.

So, my lesson learned was that preparing yourself through self-education on a topic is helpful, but learning how to read and help your loved ones, we’ll that’s when you can make a real difference in the quality of their and your lives.

RESOLE will train you for the interviews. They do all of the work, all you need to do is tell your story!

To register to share your story and learn more about the days events visit the RESOLVE website.

When my husband and I were diagnosed with our infertility I was obsessed in seeking out the ‘why’ and the ‘now what’ answers. Every answer I found only lead me to become more distraught over our situation. That was until we met our doctor. He was so confident that he could help us and his demeanor helped improve my outlook on the procedures. Once we started our IVF cycle, I was no longer obsessed. I stopped focusing on the negativity of our infertility. I gave up the need, the desire, to know absolutely everything about our treatment, the drugs, the tests, etc. Once I let go, the process unfolded fairly easily. I had been standing in my own way. (I do this a lot in other areas of my life too).

So, when we our twins were born premature and had to be hospitalized for a length of time, I trusted the process.  That doesn’t mean I didn’t ask the doctors and nurses a ton of questions. Instead, I found myself acting as though I was part of my daughters medical team. I found that by doing this, even though I was worried about their daily progress, I worried less than I might have otherwise. Empowered with information, I wasn’t obsessed about learning everything that could go wrong with a 30 week baby. When my daughter Copy Cat became ill, I used the knowledge from the doctors and nurses as my guide, not the Internet. I was stressed out. I was scared for their health and survival. But I was grounded and realistic.

While it is challenging not to fret about all that is wrong or all that could wrong, studies prove that stress and negativity only make the situation worse. I’m not going to tell you to relax as I see a big difference between relaxing and fretting! Although relaxing might help, good luck doing so if you are struggling with infertility or your baby is in the hospital. The worry, though, is something that is easier to manage - at least I found that to be the case.

What do you do to stop the worry? When you get upset, how to do come back down?

While I believe that I married my soul mate, our love was truly tested during our infertility and then again right after our daughters were born prematurely. We managed to remain in love no matter how mad we became with one another. There were times I was ready to walk away, but I couldn’t do it. The pull to be with my husband was too strong. I didn’t want to live my life without him in it. The strength of a marriage can be truly amazing!

You can overcome most any obstacle when you have the power of love inside you and when you are receiving it in return. Infertility can test your love. It can turn lovers into enemies. It can cause happy marriages to fall apart. It can create a black hole inside of a woman’s (or man’s) heart.

Love. How can you incorporate more of it into your life?

The challenge of educating ourselves is to know what is true and what is not. For example, one of my friends is pregnant with twins after 8 years of infertility treatments. She has had some medical complications. She is also a nurse so she is comfortable with the terminology and isn’t afraid to ask questions. However, like the rest of us, she can find the most horrifying condition and speculate that is the one she has. My husband recently did the same thing — he thought he had liver disease when all it seems to have been was a virus.

My friend told me that since she was having some issues she decided to do some research herself. She then presented facts and some of her finding to her doctor. She told me that had she not brought up the possible outcomes of her medical condition the doctor might not have discussed any of the potential outcomes with her. If one of her diagnoses is correct, it could hamper the survival of one of her twins. A fact the doctor doesn’t seem to be too concerned with and a fact that scares her to death.

Doing our own research or learning more about the “what-ifs” can prepare us to ask our doctors the tough questions. What methods do you use to educate yourself about your infertility, your pregnancy, or your premature baby?

When my husband and I were in the midst of our infertility journey we were not communicating. We might have been speaking to each other, but we failed to communicate properly. We’ve worked on this and are doing much better on something that should really be very simple. But it’s not, especially when you’re dealing with medical issues.

What words are you using to communicate with your spouse about your feelings? What are you telling your doctor? Is she/he listening to your wishes and your concerns? Are you being heard?

Recently my husband’s blood work reveled that his liver enzymes were elevated. He called his doctor to ask him what the results meant. The doctor never called back. He called the doctor again. A few days later the doctor called back and agreed to pursue additional testing to diagnose the problem. Again, my husband received his results (via message service). He called the doctor since his levels were still elevated. Again, the doctor didn’t call him back. My husband’s questions were not being answered. He switched doctors.

My husband now feels like this new doctor is listening. He has a level of respect for this new doctor that he didn’t have with the other one. This respect allows my husband to accept the advice his doctor provides. The idea of respect does allow communicate to happen more effectively. I know that when I think someone is listening to what I’m saying I tend to be more attentive to them.

We must speak up for our needs and wants. I’ve become much better at this after my infertility experience. I’m more likely to speak up for what I want and what I believe in. In the short term, this can be challenging or create conflict in your relationships, but the long-term rewards are awesome!

What are you speaking about?

A few of my favorite Creating A Family shows are:

1. Affording Infertility
2. Reducing Multiple Births (I’m interviewed in this one — even so, it is full of great content by Dr. Stillman)
3. How to make the big decisions in infertility

I also like these podcast episodes from the Twin Peas Blog and Podcast:

1. Budgeting for Infertility
2. Rewrite Your Story
3. Advocacy for Infertility

Let me know what you think of these podcasts/interviews. What would you like to hear?

But all is not lost. There are many great resources to help you prepare for your journey. Angie Best-Boss and Evelina Sterling’s book, “Budgeting for Infertilty” is a must read for couples considering any form of fertility treatment, including Clomid. The book is even more valuable if you need to progress to artifical inseminations, often called IUI. They provide tips for negotiating the price of your treatments with the doctors. How great would it be to save $500 or more on treatments! Get your copy today. Or hire Angie and Evelina to help you determine your best route to parenthood and save both time and money, visit them at MyFertilityPlan.

Do you have a friend that isn’t able to have a baby? Or maybe you are at the end of the line and ready to move onto the next phase in your life. The book you should read is Silent Sorority by Pamela Tsigdinos.

Please note that I do not benefit financially from any purchases of these books, I’m providing links to these authors/titles because I believe in their messages.

This week they posted the first of their three series interviews with me. I’m honored to be in the same category as the other women I mentioned in this post. The podcast is only 8 minutes long I hope you’ll listen, WegoHealth podcast.

One of the key findings of this report, which is a no brainer, is that women/couples would be more willing to purse the use of eSET if finances were not an issue with regard to fertility treatment. When the financial component is removed, most women/couples were willing to attempt a single embryo transfer (also with the hope that if the first cycle didn’t work they at least had one or two frozen embryos to use for a second cycle).

So, the question is, how do we convince insurance companies it is cheaper for them to pay for ART procedures than it is for them to pay for the premature multiples these procedures create? Any ideas?

When my husband and I did the “clomid challenge” our Reproductive Endocrinologist made us sign the “selective reduction” waiver. We laughed as the nurse handed us the paperwork and then asked her if she realized the “clomid challenge” was only being done to see how I would react to the medications…it was unlikely we’d get pregnant due to our male factor issues. She was adamant we sign the waiver anyway, which we did.

But does signing the waiver that you’ll consider or agree to selective reduction if you become pregnant with high-order muliples make it binding? Can a doctor really force you to undergo this procedure? I’m thinking the answer is no. And how does a couple decide which babies to “selectively reduce”? I’m not sure I could do it. Could you?

Thanks to Dr. Alan Singer for alerting me to this article. The short Newsweek article is worth a read and I applaud Dr. Evans for writing on this controversial issue.

If you are interested contact Obstetrix for more information, 1-800-243-3839 (www.pediatrix.com).

This is the first year since I’ve been a mom that I’ve been able to truly embrace the day. While I am so very grateful to be mom, I will not forget those wonderful women and men who so desperately want to be parents too. For Alicia, Jimmy and Christine, Pamela and the many others - my thoughts are with you this weekend.

Imagine living in a world where everyone around you is pregnant or has a child, yet you remain childless. Where can you turn for support and guidance? Pamela Jeanne at Coming2Terms openly and honestly discusses her journey through the unforgiving maze of infertility. She just launched her book, Silent Sorority. I just bought my copy. Please support her and go purchase yours too.

Whether you are currently dealing with it currently, overcame infertility, or never had an problems building your family, this book is a must read.  There is a great divide between the women who easily have children and those who live with infertility (with or without children). This book will help all of us learn to be more compassionate and not to judge our fellow women so quickly.

It’s National Infertility Awareness Week. I cannot think of a better way to recognize this movement than by purchasing a copy of Pamela’s book Silent Sorority.

NIAW: April 26. Sunday, Getting the Support You Need for the Journey Through Infertility
NIAW: April 27. Monday. Affording Your Family Building Dreams
NIAW: April 28. Tuesday. Stop the Roller Coaster: I Want to Get Off
NIAW: April 29. Wednesday. Advocating for Family Building Legislation in 2009
NIAW: April 30. Thursday. Choosing the Right Family Building Provider for You

I’m hoping the showing in 2010 will be at least twice as large as it was this year. In the Phoenix Metro area there are more than 140,000 women/couples struggling with infertility. Truly, there should have been thousands of us standing up for all means of family building, including the “decision” to live childfree. No matter how small the crowd, we took a small step toward progress.

If there was a walk in your area, what could the organizers do to encourage you to participate?

My mom used Melaleuca briefly when I was still living a home, but she stopped using them once I moved away. I remember being disappointed she quit using the products because I loved them and even as a young woman loved the idea of using products that were not harmful to the environment. As such, I started using Melaleuca products in my home in 2005. It is nice to know that the products I use in my house are not fatal.

Getting back to ecostore USA. They offer a few household products as well as body care items. They sent me their Vanilla Soap. Once I saw the rounded edges on this natural soap bar I was hooked. It is one of the best all natural soap products I’ve used. I’m going to be ordering more this month! They offer other flavors too. Check it out: ecostore.

I’ve been using the Vanilla Shampoo on my twin daughters and they love it. It smells good and it lathers nicely. It doesn’t burn their eyes so it is very gentle. The nice thing about the ecostore shampoos and conditioners is that they are not any more expensive than the high-end brands, such as Rusk or Matrix/Biolage products. They have quite a few scents to choose from. Visit the ecostore website to see what forumlas would work best for your hair type.

And they even have pet care products!

Are these products slightly more expensive than what you will see in the grocery store? Probably. In these tough economic times people are watching their dollars. However, think about the products you use each day. What are you currently putting on your body? On your scalp? What are you using to clean your house? Are those products full of chemicals? If so, they are hurting your health. In addition, what chemicals are you exposing your partner and/or children too?

Sometimes the long-term benefits of more natural products outweight the current cost of the products. If you try something from ecostore USA, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Place an order from ecostore USA for $25 or more in April and recieve free shipping!

There are a lot of great communities out there along with discussion forums. But I like the ning communities because they are a combination of individual blogs and the Facebook format. Check them out and then join in. Be sure to “friend” me when you do!

Bring your pet as there will be a dog contest. If you have childen plan to stay after the walk and enjoy the family friendly activites too. Register for the walk at RESOLVE, the fee is just $15 and includes a free t-shirt along with the opportunity to win either the IVF or $250 gift card.

On Tuesday, April 14th, my girls and I will be interviewed by Channel 12 News on the Arizona Midday program. Tune in at 1 p.m. if you are in the Phoenix area.

With the tough economic times fund raising has been more challenging than in years past. If you would be interested in donating to our team visit: The Damron Dolls team page. Every dollar helps. Thanks for your contributions and support!

If you want to start your own March for Babies team visit: March for Babies and sign up for the event in your area.

One year after our cycle we recieved paperwork from our clinic asking us what we wanted to do with our embryos. Our options were 1) keep them frozen and pay the annual fee, 2) donate them to another couple, or 3) destroy them. Our twins were only a few months old. We opted to keep our embryos frozen. I was hanging onto the idea of trying for another child, but my husband was ready to destroy the embryos.  Thankfully, he knew I wasn’t ready and agreed to keep them on ice for at least one more year.

Then year two rolled around. We had to make a decision. I called our clinic to see if there was a fourth option, donate our embryos to science. Unfortunately, this was not something our clinic did. Both my husband and I were disappointed. We actually discussed that had we know this we might have chosen another clinic. Yet, neither of us ever thought we would have unused embryos.

My husband was adamant that our embryos not be “used” by someone else. He didn’t want his DNA to be raised by a stranger. While I can understand his point, I disagreed that the embroys were our children even though they contained our DNA. But in the end we made the decision to destroy our left over embroys since he was unwilling to donate them to another couple.

When I read articles like this one: Embryo Adoption An Alternative For Infertile Couples,  it makes me sad that we didn’t donate our embryos to another couple. However, I am thankful there are other couples who have used IVF that are willing to do so.

What are your thoughts? Would you donate your unused embryos? Or, on the other hand, would you be willing to adopt embryos?

Here are the rules and instructions:

We need your help educating and spreading awareness by telling stories of Adoption and Infertility.Your favorite blog entry could be your submission. If you would like to enter someone else’s blog entry, email it here- make sure you know whether they want to remain anonymous from other readers . The winner will receive a Parenthood for Me t-shirt and the cutest hair clips from Ellebows & More, and their essay or blog entry will be posted on our blog and website and used in our literature.

1. Essay/ Blog entry 500 words or less
2. Topics can vary from IF, adoption, living childless, miscarriage and loss, surrogacy, birth parent view, open adoption
3. Deadline is May 1, 2009 10PM Eastern time
4. Email your submission to PFM and put “essay contest” in subject line
5. You can remain anonymous to other readers. Make sure you let me know.
5. Notify other bloggers or non-bloggers- spread the word!!!

At first it didn’t seem like we could or would ever agree on a course of action regarding our fertility. We didn’t take the time to figure out if we were both on the same path to parenthood, obviously we were not. I was doing most of the research on what procedures would be the best fit for our medical conditions and assumed that he would agree. We talked about adoption prior to getting married, but when the reality of that decision was upon us we couldn’t agree that was a good idea for both of us.

We did consider the consequences, somewhat.  We didn’t talk about what would happen in the procedures didn’t work. Nor did we talk about the risks involved with a twin pregnancy. We were naive too in that we thought a twin pregnancy would be a good thing - we knew little of the risks involved in a multiple gestation pregnancy.

Finally, there are multiple cost to infertility. The financial cost, the emotional cost, relationship strains, etc. We mainly focused on the financial drain of the fertility treatments because initially this was the first hurdle to overcome. Yet, our biggest battle would be the miscommunication or lack of communication during our journey.

I wish we would have considered these three questions once we found out our diagnosis of infertile:

1. What is our course of action to become parents? What procedures will we pursue? How long will we try? How much money will we spend?
2. What are the consequences of our actions? What if the procedures don’t work? What if we become pregnant with twins or more? What are the risks to the woman during treatment and/or during pregnancy?
3. What are the costs? How much are we willing to risk, not just financially, but also regarding the bond of our marriage? How can we minimize these costs?

Did you create an action plan or consider any of these questions?

I’ve created the 3 C’s that I use now when assessing my health providers:

1. Are they compassionate?
2. Do they display their competence openly to me?
3. Will they work in collaboration with me in my health?

Although these 3 C’s may seem basic, I’ve used them to make decisions for me and my family. For example, whenever my daughters are ill we go to the same doctors office, but it’s often difficult to schedule an appointment with my girls primary care physician on short notice. Therefore, often times we see one of the other doctors in the office. So far I have been impressed with the display of compassion by all of the doctors in this group. They truly seem to feel sorry for the sick child, my child.

The item of competence is assumed by us whenever we visit a doctor. What I like is when the doctor describes why they are doing a procedure or prescribing a particular medication. Or discussing how my illness will progress until I get better. In December my doctor was concerned about one of my eyes. She made it clear that it was imperative I visit an eye doctor ASAP. When she explained why it was so important, I scheduled the appointment within 30 minutes of leaving her office. I will no longer accept a doctors instructions without an explanation as to why it is critical that I do something. I need to know the consequences of my actions or the medications I am taking.

The third item is the most important, at least in my opinion. If my doctor doesn’t treat me as a critical member of the team than I go find a doctor that will. About one year ago I made the decision to leave my Ob/Gyn who I had been seeing for more than 5 years because he wouldn’t run a simple test for me. He discounted my opinions and my need to know the status of my pituitary tumor. My current Ob/Gyn ran the test for me after I explained to her why it was important for me to know the results. I know my body better than anyone else, and I should be treated as such.

What are your requirements for your health care provider?

Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (H.R. 1256)

“The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to debate the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” (H.R. 1256) very soon. This legislation, if enacted, would give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the manufacture, distribution and sale of tobacco products.

Currently, about 10% of women smoke during pregnancy.  According to a 2004 report by the US Surgeon General, if all pregnant women stopped smoking there would be an 11% reduction in stillbirths and a 5% reduction in newborn deaths.  Enactment of this legislation would support a significant reduction in smoking among women of childbearing age by restricting deceptive marketing practices, limiting children’s access to tobacco products and preventing tobacco companies from misleading women about “reduced risk tobacco products.”

We need your help to get this bill approved-please contact your US Representative today!” March of Dimes