Three Men ... and A Woman in a Boat

I was in the middle of the Indian ocean. The dark clouds started to gather in the sky above and the previously deep blue sea turned to black. I was sitting atop a boat that looked like it was made in the last century. At first it only drizzled... "You must come into the shelter Ma'am.. it's going to storm!" cried the boatman.

Just as I ducked under the arch that lead behind a pane of glass, the boat edged into the fury of the storm. Rain and seawater came from every side as the boat tossed and turned as it tried to go back to the island. We were hopelessly wet. The boatman yelled for me to wrap a towel around me. I could hardly hear him above the roar of the ocean and thunder claps. At the stern of the boat, the navigator was trying his best to steer the boat by using his leg to move the rudder. If the situation wasn't so dire, I would have laughed to see his frantic actions that looked like a cross between taekwondo and dancing.

The sea swelled and the waves got higher and higher. When I looked behind, I could see the dark sky and the ominous sea interchange as the boat rocked wildly. Didn't I say I wanted adventure as I stepped into the boat that morning to look for dolphins? Was this the end?

Fertility Specialist Visit One

We arrived at TMC Fertility Centre at about 8.40am. We were amazed at the 'messiness' of the hospital. There was a counter at the ground floor but no one was manning it. The nurses walking into the lift did not bother about us. Then we took the lift to the first floor for registration.

After taking down our particulars and other medical history in a little cramped podlike space, Marido and I was brought into a private room for sperm taking! It was a hilarious experience... suffice to say that we giggled quite a bit. I looked at the jar after it was filled up and was amazed to see so little of it!! Apparently the amount is more than normal (but how do I know, I never measured them before). The sperm count test took 1.5 hours .. so we went off to have breakfast.

At 11am, we were back at the centre and had to wait until 11.30 before the doctor could see us. Dr Lee was a soft spoken man (he looks almost sad!) and he started to look at Marido's sperm count. Everything was normal except for the morphology (the normal was above 5), Marido's is like 10.. excellent quality!! So, that rules out any problems on the man's side. Hhrrumph! Here he has Olympic champion swimmers and I am still not pregnant??

A vaginal scan came next... a penis like item that was coated in lubricant was just plugged into the vagina....it was freaky to see my eggs in the ovaries.... so many of them. The entire scan, finger probe (he dug his fingers in me!) only took a few minutes and was totally painless.. in fact, it tickled a bit. The scan showed nothing out of the ordinary. I am not sure if I sud feel relieved or bewildered. Relieved because there seems to be nothing wrong.... puji Allah! But bewildered cos .. so what could be wrong??

The doctor peered from his report to say that he wanted me to take Clomid to stimulation good ovulation and release of eggs.. and hastily reassured me that there is hardly any overstimulation of the ovaries in most cases. He also confirmed that there will be no physical side effects for most people. He then looked anxious to close the file and told me to visit on the 13th day of menstruation next month.

That cost us RM450 for sperm test, vaginal scan and doctor's fee.

I guess I felt relieved at this stage.. there was nothing actually wrong and so we still have a chance. However, there is this niggling irritation at the back of my mind that sometimes blows up to huge proportions (I think it may be aggravated by the fact that I am unemployed right now). Reading the books on getting pregnant did warn me about the slippery slope towards a strained marriage when it comes to a 'infertile' couple.

Well, more on this the next round.

My getting preggie endeavours

Cyn passed me a book titled "Catch me a Colobus" by Gerald Durrell. It's an old book by this zoo keeper about the antics of the animals in his zoo in London. He started writing books in order to be able to get money for the zoo that he was involved in. You can imagine how delighted I was to read stuff about animals. When I was younger, I positively loved James Herriot - Author of All Creatures Great & Small. But that is another story.

Back to this book, Mr D wrote about his attempts to breed the animals in the zoo. But leaving nature to run its course was not exactly a fruitful thing. After consulting another zoo keeper of another district that a successful breeding programme, he discovered that the animals needed to be feed a boost of vitamins and minerals made into something called "The Cake". The cake was easily made but when introduced to the animals produced no response as the animals refused to touch the cake. Even after starving them, the animals still refused to even sniff at the cake. The problem ended when he put some aniseed into the cake.. the animals went wild and proceeded to reproduce shortly after.

That started me thinking about my own reproductive self. Hmm.. I suppose I must be eating the right vitamins and minerals to get the body going. After researching about vitamins, I accidentally discovered (via an old ex-colleague) a book titled Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements by Lyle McWilliams. In this book, where he and his team researched 500 supplements in the North American market. They discovered that sadly.. very few products out there is well absorbed by the body. At the bottom of the list are products like ... er.. better not to tell.. cos it's quite popular here - only 5% absorption. The best products are 3 brands - Douglas Labs, Truehealth (both not in Malaysia) and Usana. These products have about 90++% absorption by the body. So I purchased my first few bottles of Usana and let's see how things go.

In any case, it's good to be taking good supplements that are actually used by the body. I had hardly taken vitamins anyway, except for EPO.

I am also planning to visit the TMC Fertility Centre this Monday for a total check-up. I just cannot continue not knowing what the situation is. I suspect that I may have endometriosis. This would explain my more painful than normal menstrual pains.

Well, more news later! Thanks for being with me.

Another little boy

I guess that when one is trying to get pregnant, one becomes more acutely aware of pregnant women or of people giving birth (now which philosopher said that??) Well, little Andrew is part of this world now and there are 2 baby Andrews in my life (dang! I really liked that name... looks like I can't name my future son Andrew after all).

Online greetings to both the parents... you are blessed!

On a more serious and weird note, I want to visit this kid and his parents but but the strange thing is that the father of the kid is my ex-bf... and I dunno how his wife will feel about it. And why do I want to visit the kid.. well, other than the fact that my old friends (whom are not close anymore due to our breakup a long time ago) whose friendship I am keen to renew are all going too. Also, I feel a little masochistic.. I want to see the child and then feel that strange feeling of "that could have been mine...." Not sure if this is good for my psyche.

Well,... maybe that would spur me to get a move on ....