About Me

UPDATE: I can't be bothered to rewrite this whole long thing, but I can tell you that I'm now 41 and hope to do a FET before I turn 42. It's all about the money, well, and waiting for my period to show up.

The big long story:

I'm a 39 year old American married to a Scotsman. I'm infertile, I'm pagan, I'm afat bellydancer, I write and read science fiction, and through the power of science and a lot of luck, I got pregnant and am now the proud mom of a beautiful baby boy.

I spent 8 and half years trying to get pregnant. When I was living in Scotland, after 3 years my GP referred me to the Aberdeen Infertility Clinic (may they rot in hell), where I had an HSG. It was extremely painful, showing very slow spillover and grossly enlarged tubes. I pretty much knew from the picture that IVF would be our only option (like 4 years of no-control sex and not a single pregnancy wasn't big enough of a clue). 3 years after that I was in pelvic pain, rode the dildocam and discovered the classic string o' pearl ovaries, the hallmark of PCOS. I have all the hallmarks of PCOS *except* hirsutism and irregular periods. My bloodwork is absolutely normal. I begged to be put on Metformin, but it wasn't my miracle, I lost 13lbs over 1.5 years and gained heart palpitations in return. So I went off of it.

One day, 2 months before we were to start IVF at the clinic, my doctor called me at work to tell me the rules had changed, I was now too fat (although my weight hadn't changed in the 4 years I'd been on the waiting list, and I repeatedly asked them if it was going to be a problem), and I was no longer eligible for IVF anywhere in Britain.

Yeah, that wasn't a good day. Especially as 4 of my coworkers became pregnant within 4 months of that call. Stressed and depressed, I stopped low carbing, got reacquainted with cake, bread, candy, and a lot, a lot, a lot of wine. Them Mr Oro came home with paperwork, threw it on the coffee table and said, "I want to move to the US".

A year later we moved back to my home state, where I found a fantastic clinic who didn't give a crap about my weight or BMI (I'm too fat for the other extremely well known clinics in New England). I had to redo all of my tests and after my second HSG, it was discovered I had perfectly normal sized, unblocked tubes and perfect spillover. In May/June 2007, I had my first IVF and am now the mother of a gorgeous baby boy. (can I repeat that often enough?)(don't ask)

You can read about my pregnancy, and now about my clueless adventures in parenting here:
http://www.birchandmaple.blogs.com/the_liminal_universe

If you'd like information about my clinic and how I was treated there, feel free to email me.