Infertility Podcast & Blog

I think this article from the Los Angeles Times very well describes all the struggles couples face when they don’t know what to do with leftover frozen embryos. It also goes into details about the proposed Colorado amendment to amend the state’s constitution to assert that an embryo is a person.

It seems like Resolve is strongly opposing this amendment. I could imagine if the amendment does get passed, there will be a lot of sticky situations to deal with for both the doctors and their patients.

Tags: Infertility News, infertility by malky
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You may remember that I jumped the gun a bit on being nominated for a podcast award and I was a bit embarassed by that. However, now is your chance to get us on the ballot again by nominating us to be a part of the award voting. I think that the health/fitness category would work just fine. How the process works is simple, as an individual, you are allowed to fill out the nomination form ONE TIME. Go down to the Health/Fitness section and write in “The Infertiity Podcast” and our website. It’s real easy and fun. Oh, don’t forget to nominate other podcasts that you enjoy as well; as long as they aren’t in the heath/fitness category of course.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that you have until September 30th to do this.

Tags: General, Infertility News, infertility by aaron
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According to this article from The Sydney Morning Herald, women in their early 40s have doubled their chances of having a baby through IVF in just two years. Their success rate is increasing faster than any other age group, according to national statistics that hold new hope for older would-be mothers.

Better media for culturing embryos and a trend in transferring embryos at the blastocyst stage, five or six days after fertilization, rather than the two-to-three-day stage, had helped older women. This allows more certain selection of the best-quality embryos.

Great new for all of us approaching the big 40 (me in 14 months - yikes), as well as for those of us already in their 40’s.

Tags: Infertility News, infertility by malky
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Dr Siobhan Quenby of the University of Liverpool, presented the results of a study she conducted to test the efficacy of steroids to prevent repeated miscarriages.

The tests, involving 120 women, showed that natural killer cells were a cause of miscarriages and failed IVF embryo implants. While natural killer cells have certain desirable functions, in the uterus, they have been found to encourage the rapid growth of blood vessels when present in high numbers.

These extra blood vessels can bring too much oxygen-bearing blood to the uterus and lead to miscarriage. A treatment of steroids can reduce the level of these natural killer cells in the uterus.

In a trial, 40 women, who had suffered multiple miscarriages, were given steroids, and 75% of them have since given birth.

I know Stephanie, from Brooklyn, will particularly like these findings ;-).

Tags: Infertility News, infertility by malky
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This is going to be the last post about how I am doing post surgery. That is because I’m back to full health, thank God. Sunday night I took all off whatever remained from the steri-strips and and threw out the support that I was still wearing. I feel perectly fine. Thanks for all of you out there that wished me well.

Tags: Family, General, infertility by aaron
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I came across this very detailed article from Conceive online that lists cause and treatment for male factor infertility. This is the best article I’ve come across yet with quite a few quotes from the good doctors at Cornell as well.

Tags: infertility by malky
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I had a quick (maybe 5 minutes total) appointment with the doctor today so he could check out my stitches and see if there is indeed anything wrong down there. To my relief, he said that everything was looking good and I’m well on the road to recovery. 

The amazing thing is that starting from yesterday afternoon, I have been feeling a lot better. I have been able to walk almost at full speed, which is an improvement from where I was even yesterday morning. Not only that I’m not feeling any pain when I get up or sit down. 

I had been worried that the second week was going to be like the first but it’s almost like week one was getting up the hill and this week I’m heading down the hill. It’s a good feeling. 

Tags: Family, General, infertility by aaron
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I have not blogged about my recovery recently and I wouldn’t be a good narcissist if I didn’t focus things back on me. I think that on Saturday I over exerted myself and that stemmed from my having to rush so I didn’t get caught in some rain that was starting to fall. Then I felt that I was doing OK so I gave sleeping on my left side a try. That turned out to be a mistake since my incision bled over night. It wasn’t a lot of blood but it was enough that I was worried a bit. I followed that up by bending over a lot on Sunday to get some laundry done. 

Today I took it easy for the most part and I think that I’m doing better. The stitches still hurt like hell some times and there was still some bleeding (this time on the right side which is a smaller incision) but I didn’t feel totally in pain like I did yesterday. And as Martha likes to say, that’s a good thing. 

Tomorrow is going to be a test since I have to go to a meeting and do a presentation in Mid-Town Manhattan and then head back to the office and finally back home. This is a good amount of traveling and I’ll be having to take the subway for all of the travel. Wish me luck.

Tags: Family, infertility by aaron
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I was finally able to take a shower yesterday and what a difference that made. I felt rejuvenated and like a new person. A new person with two sets of stitches in a sensitive area, but a new person never the less. After the shower I was able to remove some of the extra bandages around the incisions and that really helped out a lot. Aside from about an hour, I was almost my old self again. In fact I’m going into the office in a few minutes. 

One of the other good signs was that I was able to finally sleep on my side and stay in bed the entire night. As I mentioned in a previous post (I think) I wasn’t able to sleep on my side the first few nights and could only sleep on my back. This wasn’t good for my sleeping and I wound up getting up at around 2:30am to try and sleep on the couch. Thankfully, that didn’t happen last night. 

So the upshot is that I’m getting better slowly but surely, which is frustrating me to no end since I think I should be at 100% already. 

Tags: Family, Humor, infertility by aaron
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I couldn’t sleep well last night. This is because I’m not able to sleep on my sides as I is my wont because of the location of the incisions and stitches. I have to sleep on my back which is no fun at all. Not only that but the pain seems to be worse today than it was yesterday. This may be a result of my trying to over do things yesterday, this is something else that I’m pretty good at.

I washed my hair last night and Malky helped me with that and gave me a baby wipe bath which did a pretty good job. She’s really been there for me during this and I really appreciate it even though this is going to ruin our anniversary date. That’s coming up on the 30th.

Tags: Family, General, infertility by aaron
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