Tag: Ovulation

What’s infertility got to do with a terrorist attack?

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I have been surprised at how many people have commented on my apparent levelheadedness during the terrorist attack in Brussels airport.  Although the absolute fear and terror was running through my mind, my actions seemed logical.  I’m surprised, because I just did what I did – and even I am somewhat surprised at my own response.  However, I think that it is all mostly about an element of luck.  Some people have told me, they believe in some kind of divine intervention (I personally do not believe that, whether god exists or not).  The luck was the third suitcase bomb didn’t explode.  The luck was that I wasn’t closer.  The luck was that the terrorists were ill prepared to carry out a more sophisticated attack.  (Apparently, they had been planning more, but for some reason failed to implement it).  The luck was that I was in the right place and it simply wasn’t my time to die.

A friend of mine made a really interesting comment about the difference between a man and woman’s propensity to take risk.  A woman’s appetite to take risk varies with her menstrual period, where as a man’s appetite for risk remains relatively stable.  When a woman is in her ovulatory stage, she is less likely to take risks.  Therefore, hormones surely have a role to play in risk taking.  So what does that mean for a woman who is going through infertility treatment and jacked up with lots of hormones?  Does this mean that a woman’s propensity for risk is heightened or lowered depending on the stage of their treatment, how different would it be compared to if they were in their normal menstrual cycle?

During the attack, I was on Day 12 of the down regulation part of my IVF cycle, preparing for my upcoming stimulation phase.  I had already been experiencing some of the side effects from these drugs (I wrote about them in my previous diary entry here).  The question I have is – had I not been on these drugs would I have reacted differently to the situation?  We will never know the answer, because we will never know what could have been.  But it is an interesting question never-the-less!

I can tell you that the feelings and emotions I have been experiencing after getting caught up in the attack are not dissimilar to how I felt after being told our pregnancy was not viable.  I’ve experienced random crying over what could have been.  Sadness, frustration, anger and numbness – all feelings that have washed over me in the immediate days past these traumatic events.  I never thought I could ever liken an impending pregnancy loss to surviving a terrorist attack.  But I am, and that is simply how I have been feeling over the past couple of days.  I’ve also experienced the overwhelming feeling of love and kindness from friends and family after these events.  And I mean overwhelming to the point where I have been dumbstruck.

I anticipate that I might attend some kind of therapy after experiencing what I did this week.  The question I have is, why haven’t I been so accepting of undertaking therapy for infertility after our loss and constant failure? If these feelings I am experiencing are so similar, perhaps I should have gone to therapy over our infertility sooner? I don’t know, but perhaps I just didn’t realise the intense emotions and trauma infertility slowly piles up upon us.  Or maybe, the reason is because I feel like I have absolutely no control over a terrorist attack, and maybe I *believe* I have some control over my infertility.  I think my perspective might have changed over the past week; I know some of you wonderful ladies have tried therapy for infertility and swear by it.  Going to therapy doesn’t mean I am weak, it means that I am strong, strong enough to recognise that help is there for the taking.

 

For those inclined…a couple of journal articles on risk taking and a woman’s hormonal cycle:

Variations in risk taking behaviour over the menstrual cycle:  http://people.uncw.edu/bruce/hon%20210/pdfs/risk%20taking.pdf

The influence of menstrual cycle and impulsivity and risk taking behaviour:  http://www.ledonline.it/NeuropsychologicalTrends/allegati/NeuropsychologicalTrends_17_Iannello.pdf

 

O-Day

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Chris and I shower together – we have a bath that has two shower heads at either end, so we share.  It’s impossible to switch either one off, so we have to shower together to save on the water!!!  It was a bit weird at first, but we have discovered this is the one time of day that we can have a conversation without interruptions.  Today, as we were getting in the shower together Chris asked me

“when will it be baby making time?”.

I knew it was today.  Today is ovulation day.  I don’t need an ovulation predictor kit to tell me this.  I am just so experienced at it, I just know when it’s going to happen.  All the signs and symptoms are here.  O-Day.

I turned to Chris and said that I am not sure I want to try this month.  (For some quite selfish reasons I’ll go into a minute.)  He said “Maybe if we are not trying our hardest, we are not ready to become parents”.  I told him that is a perception not a fact….  I was pretty mad at him for saying that.

….And then I just burst into tears.

I can tell you that being in the shower whilst crying is a great place to be.  You can cry your hardest and it just doesn’t matter where the tears and snot roll down you face.

Let me tell you why I cried.  I cried because I do feel selfish.  I thought about not trying this month because my period is due on my Birthday, a few days after Christmas.  Between O-day and then (the dreaded two week wait) I would feel guilty for every sip of alcohol I drink. Which will mean I will not want to drink.  But I LOVE Christmas drinks – mulled wine, bubbly, mimosas, red wine, hod toddies, baileys coffee, port. I’m not an alcoholic BTW!! Last year, I had a couple of Christmas drinks knowing there was a chance I could be pregnant.

I am also going to be in the 2 week wait worry – and I am out of practice of this.  The last time I was in the 2WW worry I remember feeling incredibly emotional.  I have just got over being sad about the way things worked out after IVF 1.  I want to be emotionally sound going into IVF 2.  If I get a negative test (which will happen to be on my Birthday by the way) I get yet another punch in the stomach that I can’t get pregnant on my own.  To which I already know this.  Why do I want to mess with my sanity when I am in a good place right now?  I would love to not go through another round of IVF.  Seriously, it would be the best thing in the world.

Unexplained infertility leaves you with feelings of ‘There is nothing stopping you get pregnant’.  Maybe we could get pregnant without medical intervention.  So I then have a huge rack of guilt.  Surely if I want a baby then these things all shouldn’t matter – I should just suck it up.

Chris says he understands.  But honestly, I don’t think he understands how I truly feel, it is difficult to understand unless you have felt it.  Yes, he feels the pain of this too.  But it’s not his body that wakes up everyday in the two week wait, hoping – losing hope with every twinge your body makes.  It turns your inside out, it makes you feel sick, it makes you well up on the verge of tears, it eats you alive.  Infertility does this.  It puts you in position of feeling guilty for not trying your hardest.  But sometimes you want to screw up that infertility and throw it in the “just fuck-it bucket”.

I haven’t decided yet.  My feelings are mixed and confused right now.

What does it all mean? Pt 2: Drugs & Hormones

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Hormones, hormones, hormones…why am I injecting all these hormones and what do they do??  This is a good question – apart from doing as I am told by the doctor, I thought I should be able to at least answer this question to my friends and family  who ask: What does each drug do and why I am taking it?  So I am going to have to go back to school with this, I hope I am not patronising.  I am sure I could recant all of this from my biology classes if they weren’t almost 20 years ago!!!

There are several ways a doctor can choose to stimulate ovaries for IVF treatment, these are called protocols and they can vary in dosage, type and timings.  My doctor has chosen the antagonist protocol for me.

Back to basics...so let’s take it back to school…there are four major hormones involved in the menstrual cycle: FSH (Follicle-Stimulating Hormone), LH (Luteinizing Hormone), Estrogen and Progesterone.  Today I am going to focus only on the first two weeks of the menstrual cycle, also known as the follicular phase.

During the folliclar phase, in a normal menstrual cycle the following events occur:

  • FSH and LH are released from the brain and travel into the blood to the ovaries.
  • These hormones stimulate 15-20 eggs in the ovaries, each in its own “shell”, called a follicle.
  • These hormones (FSH and LH) also trigger an increase in the production of estrogen.
  • As estrogen levels rise, like a switch, it turns off the production of FSH.  This careful balance of hormones allows the body to limit the number of follicles that mature to just one.

So what does this mean for IVF?  The goal of IVF is to produce as many mature eggs as possible to create conditions for the greatest chance of successful conception, to do this doctors use injectible hormones to control this phase of the mentrual cycle and stimulate the growth and maturation of the eggs, ready to be fertilised.

So we know that FSH stimulates the growth and number of small follicles, for small follicles FSH is the major survival factor that enables them to develop beyond 5mm in diameter and to avoid apoptosis, i.e. the programmed death of a follicle and egg.  In a normal menstrual cycle, multiple small follicles produce inhibin-B to lower FSH levels so that only one follicle will mature.  In an IVF cycle, artificially increased FSH overides the inhibin-B levels and therefore allows multiple follicles to grow and mature.  This is where the drugs Gonal-F and Menopur come in.

Gonal-F is a follitropin alpha medication (also known as a gonadotropin).  It is a synthetic version of the naturally-occurring FSH.  Where as, Menopur (also a gonadotropin), a combination of both FSH and LH, however unlike Gonal-F, Menopur is natural; it is extracted and purified from the urine of post-menopausal women -ummmm nice.  It is believed that a small quantity of LH during ovarian stimulation produces a better result in some patients.  It is for this reason that my doctor prescribes a combination of the natural and synthetic combination of gonadotropins, menopur and gonal-f.

As the gonal-F and menopur start to work, we need to make sure ovulation doesn’t occur prematurely, therefore they use the injectible Cetrotide.  The active substance in cetrotide is cetrorelix, this blocks the natural hormone LHRH (Lutenising hormone releasing hormone).  LHRH controls the production and release of LH which causes ovulation.  The cetrotide stops the production of LH, preventing premature ovulation.  This allows the doctors to carefully control when ovulation will occur.

The trigger injection.  The controlled hormonal stimulation I have described so far usually lasts for about 8-12 days, and dosages vary depending on how the woman responds to the drugs.  This happens all before another drug is injected – Ovidrel.  Ovidrel is the trigger injection containing a synthetic form of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin – hCG.  There are several brand names for the hCG trigger shot including Ovidrel, Profasi, Pregnyl, and Novarel.  hCG is known as the pregnancy hormone, but it also happens to be molecularly similar to LH. In a natural cycle, LH triggers ovulation. As part of fertility treatment, an injection of hCG is used to trigger the maturation of eggs.  Ovulation usually occurs 36 hours after this trigger injection is given.  In the case of IVF, egg retrieval is carefully timed to collect the eggs just before ovulation, but long enough that the eggs have matured in the body ready to be extracted for fertilisation.

In part 3 I will focus on explaining the second phase of the menstrual cycle which includes the lovely hormones estrogen and progesterone….yippeeee!!!

Last chance saloon…well kind of

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Last chance for natural conception

Today it dawned on me that as a result of my last cycle being shorter than expected, I am probably going to be away for a work conference right at peak ovulation time. DOH.  This is going to be our last chance to conceive naturally before we start IVF. (Yes I still have hope that we can beat the odds!)  Soooo, what’s a girl to do? I’m thinking an ice box and turkey baster will be required.  Wait.  That’s NOT natural!

I can just hope that I ovulate later than expected or have another short cycle!

OR Chis will just have to drive 4 hrs to DC and stay with me for one night and then get up super early and drive 4 hrs back before work. Ummmm, do you think I will be able to convince him to do it?? I’m pretty sure he will be not be down for that.

Love you honey!!!

Love you honey!!!

Oh well. It will be what it will be.  Nature is unpredictable anyway.

Lost blood work frustrations

When I first had all my infertility testing back in December last year, my doctor gave me TWO orders for blood work.  The first order was to test my cycle day 3 hormone, FSH LH etc.  The second order was to test for baddies that can affect the health of a pregnancy, such as HIV, Hep B & C, syphilis, in addition to having an immunity to Rubella and Chicken Pox (I’ve had these jabs, so I hope I have immunity!!) which are all a legal pre-screening requirement for IVF.  I received my results for Day 3 tests, but never saw my results for HIV etc.  I just assumed all was good, and never thought anything more of it until…..I met my IVF nurse the other month.

After much hunting, it turns out they never drew blood for my second order.  I KNOW I gave them that second order, so I am really annoyed.  It was only last month I received the bill for this blood work back in December, so I had no clue they never did the tests.  The bill I received for $500 I thought would have covered all these tests.  But it turns out it costs over $1000 for both orders of blood work!! So, frustratingly, the nurse had to send me a new order which took almost a week to get to me in the post (I forget how snail snail mail is here, I should have just picked it up from the office).

This time I went directly to the lab who does the analysis rather than to hospital to have my blood drawn.

Now, you would have thought that going straight to the specialists who take blood day in day out would be good at it.  But oh no.  Not this one.  After one vial of blood was collected with the needle still in my army, the nurse was like… “Come on….where did it go?  Why is nothing coming out? Hmmm…” as he wiggled the needle and I tried very hard not to shout out ‘OWWWWWWW THAT FRICKING HURTS!!’ Thankfully after what seemed like forever “Oh!! There’s the vein!”.  But I won’t be totally mean about this nurse.  He was entertaining, and did immediately recognise my accent and asked where in the UK I was from.  I congratulated him on his talent for recognising a British accent and we talked about how surprising it is how many people have no clue where I am from.  He even understood what I meant when I said “Cheers” as I left.  So I’ll let him off the hook.

So after all that, let’s hope I do have immunity to rubella, otherwise I am going to have to wait ANOTHER cycle to start IVF.  Now that will make me pretty mad 😐

You might be upside down, but you’re gorgeous to me dear Uterus

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I have been told by several doctors that I have a beautiful cervix, and today I discovered that my uterus is just as “gorgeous”.  Well these were the exact words of my Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE)!!!

Today was my hydrosonogram (also known as a Saline Infusion Sonogram).  This procedure was the final test I required prior to our IVF treatment.  The hydrosonogram is a procedure where the doctor inserts a catheter into the uterus and injects saline into the uterine cavity whilst performing a transvaginal ultrasound.  The water shows up as dark black on the ultrasound against the white endometrial lining.  This allows the doctor to look for smooth edges of the uterine cavity.  If the ultrasound shows an edge that is not smooth then these rough and lumpy edges maybe polyps, fibroids or scar tissue which could be a possible problem for embryo implantation.

The procedure in itself was an interesting experience.  Greedily, I had three doctors in the room as well as the nurse! The three doctors were: my RE, the doctor whose name I can’t pronounce and performed two of my IUIs, and one of the male student doctors Chris conversed with at our last IUI.  I wasn’t quite sure if my RE was overseeing the procedure, or she had called in the other doctor because she was more familiar with my cervix and therefore inserting the catheter.  Either way, there were a lot of people clambering around my vagina in this one tiny examination room.  It was rather amusing.

First the doctor with the unpronounceable name inserted the speculum, and then peered up from between my legs and showed me the ‘flexible’ catheter and said, “remember this?  Was it this one we used before?”. Ummmm….. “I think so??!!!” I replied.  How am I supposed to know these things???! When she inserted the catheter I could hardly feel it at all.  The speculum was removed with the catheter still in, and then she inserted the vaginal ultrasound ‘wand’.  We could see the catheter on the screen, there was a lot of excitement amongst the doctors.  The nurse was tying to hold something in whilst the two female doctors discussed tactics of why it wasn’t distending with the saline, perhaps the catheter was up against something, my uterus wall…or perhaps it was bent somehow.  Either way, when they removed the magic wand, the catheter came out.  They apologised and said they would try again.  So back in the speculum went (this was only the painful part, no different to a pap smear), the catheter went back in, speculum was removed, magic wand went back in.  And there was a gaggle of excitement as this time it had clearly succeeded; the saline filled the uterine cavity and I could quickly see there was a nice oval shape, with no rough edges on the screen.  My RE told me my uterus was “gorgeous!”.  She took a few shots on the screen, and showed me in 3D my uterus.  With this image it actually looked more like a normal shaped uterus that you see in biology books rather than what I saw on the screen during my HSG x-ray.  You can see from the image from my HSG below that it was upside down.  Today’s ultrasound, it was the right way round and looked almost perfect.  Text book.

My HSG X-ray with my retroverted uterus (it's hard to see because it's hiding behind the catheter)

My HSG X-ray with my retroverted uterus (it’s hard to see because it’s hiding behind the catheter)

I don’t have a copy of images from my ultrasound from today, but I have found a link that shows the difference between a normal and abnormal result from a hydrosonogram.

After all the excitement and the nurse had cleared everything up, suddenly my RE exclaimed! “Wait!  I need to see her ovaries so I can calculate her dosages!” So back in the stirrups I went and the nurse re-prepared everything for another peek inside using the magic wand.  We had a very quick look at my ovaries to count the number of follicles.  As today is Cycle Day 7 I had about 5 or 6 follicles in the right ovary and then a dominant one in my left.  She seemed pleased with this. I mentioned that I knew it was going to ovulate from the left his month because I could feel it.  I can always feel pain in my ovary on the left side when I’m ovulating from this side.  I’m not sure why.  The doctor who’s name I cannot pronounce seemed very interested in this fact. I left wondering why.

All in all, I left with a sense of relief.  But my feelings were mixed.  I was relieved that we can still proceed with IVF and there was nothing seriously wrong that would require surgery, but I had the feeling of frustration. In the back of my mind, we still don’t have an explanation for why we have not been successful in conceiving so far.  Unexplained infertility can really niggle away at your mind.

On a side note, today I have experienced two more pregnancy ‘announcements’.  One whilst I was at the fertility clinic, a lady found out she was being released from the fertility clinic to her OB/GYN.  She kept asking the nurse if she was sure, then she cried a lot (tears of happiness of course) which made pretty much everyone else around cry too.  Including myself.  And secondly another of my colleagues who recently married is pregnant.  Soooo all I’m thinking is – who is the third?  They usually come in threes, right??!

Around ovulation time women prefer men without bodily hair

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I’m back on to researching the weird science of ovulation again.  I discovered research* showing that ovulating women prefer men with smoother, hair free skin.  Our preferences change throughout our menstrual cycle, and indeed after the menopause.

The study examined the effect of male torso hairiness on women’s attractiveness ratings by presenting pictures of men before and after the removal of body hair.  Findings showed that when the women’s fertility was at its highest, they preferred males with less body hair.  In addition the study found that post-menopausal women demonstrated stronger preferences relating to male body hair than pre-menopausal women.  This is interesting considering the belief that women are more likely seek out more ‘manly’ features in their male choice around peak fertility as hairiness can be seen as a symbol of high testosterone levels and masculinity.  Personally, I’m not fussed about bodily hair.  Well at least I’m led to believe I’m not fussed, I wonder if I could conduct my own experiment with Chris…..hmmmmm…….

Weird science of ovulation – you confuse me so!

*  Rantala, M. J., Pölkki, M., & Rantala, L. M. (2010). Preference for human male body hair changes across the menstrual cycle and menopause. Behavioral Ecology, 21, 419-423

IUI #2 off to a better start than #1

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Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) round 2 is off to a better start than the first one – we think anyway.

A matter of timing

The first round of IUI was, of course, all new to us.  I had taken an ultrasound on the Friday (Cycle Day 11), took an Ovidrel Shot to stimulate ovulation on Saturday evening, and had IUI on Monday (CD 14).  At the time we wondered whether the IUI procedure too late because my clinic are not open on Sundays we could not do IUI that day, the Doctor had indicated that I needed the IUI procedure early on Monday, rather than later as my follicles were rather large.  I had a positive result from my ovulation predictor kit on the Sunday morning, the day BEFORE the IUI.  I simply thought that this was the Ovidrel in action, and the doctor had everything timed well.  But now we are suspicious that all this meant is that the IUI was too late….

THIS time around for cycle 2 it was a slightly different story.  I had my ultrasound on the Thursday (Cycle Day 11) and I had slightly smaller follicles, but big enough to go ahead with the IUI.  I took the Ovidrel shot on the Thursday evening, and had IUI on Saturday (CD 13).  This time, I got a positive result from my ovulation predictor kit on the morning of the IUI, Saturday morning.  This makes me believe that we were too late last time around as it seems that the Ovidrel doesn’t interfere with ovulation predictor kits.  This cycle I decided to monitor my Basal Body Temperature (BBT) for the first time ever.  Today, Sunday (CD 14) I got a spike in my temperature confirming my suspicions that I most likely ovulated yesterday.  Woohooooo!  This cycle, it feels that the IUI procedure was better timed.  I was also having horrible ovulation pains on the way to the clinic and all day yesterday.  A good sign?

The sperm stats low down

Another excellent sperm sample Mr C!

  • semen volume: 1.2mL
  • Sperm Concentration: 129 million per mL
  • Percent motile: 51.9%
  • Number of motile sperm: 80.3 million
  • After washing (centrifugation)
  • Number of motile sperm in vial: 72.5 million
  • Motility:  86.8%
  • volume of vial: 5mL
  • recovery rate for processes sample: 90.2%

The IUI procedure

As we were a bit more knowledgeable about the whole procedure this time around so the whole appointment took about 20 minutes, of which 15 minutes I was laying down on my back resting whilst the sperm figure out which direction they need to swim in. Chris joked we knew that about 15% of the sperm were just swimming around in circles, confused, not knowing what to do with themselves.

The doctor was a new one for me – a sweet lady who seemed very happy for an early Saturday morning!  I asked Chris later if I had just been treated for the first time by someone younger than me.  Eeeek we are getting old! But he believed she was actually in her mid thirties, so not much older than us.  The doctor was very kind and kept apologizing for any pain she might cause.  She told me she would use the smallest speculum and the smallest catheter possible so it wouldn’t hurt.  This made me wonder whether all this time other doctors purposefully use big speculums and catheters out of choice!  She was good at explaining everything she was doing.  She put the (smallest!) speculum into my vagina (No lubricant because this kills sperm).  She told me she was going to open the speculum up and I might feel some pressure.  Which I did, but it did not hurt.  After this she inserted the catheter into my uterus via the cervix and the sperm was injected via the catheter directly into my uterus. I barely felt a thing and it was over with in less than 2 minutes.  I had no cramping until later in the day.

Here is a short 2 minute 3D animation of how IUI works.

The nurse set a 15 minute timer and I lay down on the bed feeling a bit surreal. This time the 15 minutes went much quicker than last time because we spent it talking about our next holiday – a road trip to the West (Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Santa Fe etc).  We have been planning on going in October, but have been waiting for the last 4 months to see if we were pregnant before we book anything.  This will be the last cycle we wait before we book it.  No more holding off!

Naughty Gift – no not that kind of naughty

The morning of the IUI I decided to give Chris a gift I bought him a few weeks ago.  I have declared before that I believe it is unlucky to buy baby name books, pregnancy books, baby clothes etc before actually conceiving.  But seeing as we have been unlucky so far I thought we cant possibly have any more bad luck so what the hell, I bought a pregnancy book for men.  It’s a slightly funny book with interesting facts about pregnancy.  I couldn’t resist!  But I won’t buy anything else.  I just wanted to get him something we can share together along this journey.

My naughty gift to Chris

My naughty gift to Chris

2 Week Wait and greasy progesterone suppositories here we come!

Do I spend more $$ when I am my most “fertile”?

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Do I spend more money when I am my most “fertile’? Probably seems a bit of a strange question coming from someone who has been diagnosed with ‘unexplained infertility’.  But never the less, assuming my most fertile period is when I ovulate (give or take a few days either side), do I spend more on ‘discretionary’ items?

Yesterday I heard on the radio that a Texas university discovered that ladies buy more things when they are in their fertile period of their cycle.  Well this caught my attention considering not long ago I wrote a post on the weird science of ovulation.  So yesterday I started to look at my own spending habits, and of course I have my credit card data, and my ovulation data from the 15 months, what do they look like together overlayed?  Is there any possible correlation?  I plotted ‘discretionary’ spending, which is basically any type of spending where I had a choice (I excluded groceries, bills, fuel and work expenses), against ‘peak ovulation’ days.  Ovulation day is the highest orange peak, with 2 days either side of ovulation day.  Here’s what my chart looked like….

SpendvOv

Nope…doesn’t look like much of a correlation!  But it was interesting to see my ‘waves’ of spending habits!  This analysis is really rudimentary.  What was the radio show really talking about?  There must be some particular way I need to look at spending v ovulation or perhaps I don’t fit the profile because I am actually infertile?? Haha. OK, I’m being mean to myself here.

So this evening I hunted down the source of the research…Asst. Professor Kristina Durante from University of Texas.  Here is her webpage, it has a link to all her research papers on it.  She has done a lot of interesting social science research on ovulation and social effects.  She has even given a TED Talk – Fertile, Flirty & Feisty (I love TED  Talks by the way!) her approach is all related to evolutionary theory.

It turns out her research is in fact far more in depth than the radio makes it out to be…Chinese Whispers etc.  Indeed, the paper merely discussed that ovulation affects women’s preferences, which might contribute to spending on positional goods such as cars and jewellery.  Well the majority of my ‘discretionary’ spending included decaf skinny vanilla lattes and cookies so I think we can safely say my chart is null and void.  But it was interesting anyway whilst it lasted 😎  One way to keep me busy in the 2 week wait and distract from horrible cramps and leaky vaginas – geek out!

Abstract from: Money, Status and the Ovulatory Cycle*

Each month, millions of women experience an ovulatory cycle that regulates fertility. Previous consumer research has found that this cycle influences women’s clothing and food preferences. The authors propose that the ovulatory cycle actually has a much broader effect on women’s economic behavior. Drawing on theory in evolutionary psychology, the authors hypothesize that the week-long period near ovulation should boost women’s desire for relative status, which should alter their economic decisions. Findings from three studies show that women near ovulation seek positional goods to improve their social standing.  Additional findings reveal that ovulation leads women to pursue positional goods when doing so improves relative standing compared with other women but not compared with men. When playing the dictator game, for example, ovulating women gave smaller offers to a female partner but not to a male partner. Overall, women’s monthly hormonal fluctuations seem to have a substantial effect on consumer behavior by systematically altering their positional concerns, a finding that has important implications for marketers, consumers, and researchers.

* Durante, K.M, Griskevicius, V., Cantu, S.M. & Simpson, J.A. Journal for Marketing Research, 2014

Purple sperm and a painless IUI#1

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Today Chris and I tried to make a baby without touching each other (well later on we will try the normal way too!!).  Totally weird.

Last night I had killer ovulation pain.  Both my ovaries were painful when I went to bed – the timing seemed to be just right, 12 hours before the scheduled artificial insemination procedure.  Thankfully, I woke up this morning with just a dull ache in my ovaries rather than a sharper pain.

Chris worked from home today and I had a day of leave planned.  We headed out to the clinic for our 10AM appointment and we were out of there by 12PM (with a short interlude to Starbucks).  First of all Chris gave his sperm specimen for washing.  He didn’t take long at all!  Then we headed to Starbucks for a quick coffee and catch up on a bit of work.  Chris collected his washed sperm sample and we waited in the waiting room with his purple sperm for about 20 minutes.  Yup it was purple!

Chris's purple sperm

Chris’s purple sperm

The specimen that Chris gave was excellent according to the doctor:

semen volume: 1.7mL

Sperm Concentration: 12.45 million per mL

Percent motile: 64.3%

Number of motile sperm: 13.6 million

After washing (centrifugation)

Number of motile sperm in vial: 6.6 million

Motility:  95.7%

volume of vial: 5mL

recovery rate for processes sample: 49%

It seemed a bit weird sitting in the waiting room whilst Chris held his sperm…but then again I am currently blogging about his sperm, so we are not prudish about it.  It was just weird and I can’t put my finger on why.  We did get a good giggle though from the diagram on the results form. It was more of a cartoon than a diagram because I don’t think it accurately represents a medical procedure of washing sperm.  But perhaps it is, and this is how they wash the sperm, in a nice warm bubble bath.

A highly technical diagram on how sperm are washed

A highly technical diagram on how sperm are washed

I wasn’t nervous about today, just more excited to get it over with.  I was called into the examination room with Chris and the nurse briefed us on the procedure.  Very simple.  A speculum is inserted, without any lubrication (because that kills sperm), then a catheter is inserted through the cervix to the womb.  The sperm are then slowly injected into the womb.  Actually it wasn’t very slow and was over within seconds.  Apparently the doctor pulled a funny face after she removed the catheter.  I didn’t notice as I was concentrating on the picture taped to the ceiling of a happy place – a tropical island beach.  The face was one of puzzlement.  Chris wondered if she was going to say that something didn’t work.  But no, that was it, over and done with in less than 2 minutes.  It was painless and hurt less than a pap smear test.  I was asked to lay down for 15 minutes, and the nurse left a timer.  We laughed about bun making, ovens and timers.  All in all, the process was very easy.  I’ve had cramping for most of the day, but I’d rather that than the sharp ovulation pain I was having any day of the week.

We are now into the two week wait and I have told Chris if he asks me one more time ‘Do you feel pregnant yet?’ I’ll punch him in the face.  Luckily he doesn’t really mean it and we can have a bit of a giggle about it.  No point in stressing, my glass is back to being half full again 🙂