Fertility, infertility, and loss

Interesting article on fertility, infertility and pregnancy loss.

Excerpt...

Fertility, subfertility and superfertility

Put simply, pregnancy requires little more than implantation of a developmentally
competent embryo into the receptive endometrium. In many species, pregnancy is readily achieved and maintained. In humans, however, the prevalence of subfertility is high and increasing, affecting one in six couples in developed countries (Evers, 2002).

Fertility can be measured by the time taken to achieve pregnancy. Time-to-pregnancy (TTP) is expressed in monthly fecundity rates (MFRs), i.e. the probability of achieving pregnancy within one menstrual cycle. The average MFR in humans is, compared with other mammalian species, relatively low at 20% (Stevens, 1997; Viudes-de-Castro and Vicente, 1997; Evers, 2002). On the basis of this MFR, a simple mathematical model predicts that 74, 93 and 100% of normally fertile couples will conceive in 6, 12 and 24
months, respectively. Along the same lines, moderate and severe subfertilities have been defined by MFRs of 5 and 1%, respectively (Evers, 2002). At the other end of the spectrum, superfertility can be characterized with MFRs of 60% or more. According to this model, superfertile couples achieve 94 and 100% of pregnancies within 3 and 6 months, respectively. On the basis of the Tietze model (Tietze et al., 1950; Evers, 2002), it has been estimated that 79% of the population is fertile, 18% subfertile or infertile and 3% superfertile...

So yes my older sister E is officially a super duper "superfertile" with a 100% hit rate on four tries, and I am an infertile (oh no wait, I think I prefer "moderately to severely subfertile"). Sounds so much better... :/

Our house = Romper Room

We are hosting my sister E and her brood tonight, as they are out on their first midwestern roadtrip since nephew I was born in January. The last time they visited was last fall (b4 I's arrival), see pic here. I somehow didn't get any pics when we were up in February, I think I may have forgotten my camera... Will definitely get some cute new pics up soon.

Her kids are nephew B (38 months), niece N (16 mos.), and nephew I (3 mos.) We'll be heading back up to WI the first weekend in May for I's baptism. Conveniently S will be away teaching a class at UIC tonight. There is definitely some Veggie Tales in my near future... ;)

Careful what I wish for...

I found out today that I will likely be going to Switzerland for business in early March. Cool, right? It's been a running joke since I started at Z in October, when/if I would ever get to go. Well, be careful what you wish for. Let me explain. I had planned to join S on his business trip to Utah at the beginning of March to get away, maybe do a little skiing and ensure that we are in the same state when I O'd, as we've been on hold for what seems like forever. Well now we may not even be on the same continent, as he won't be able to join me because of his work commitments and need for a visa. I also didn't realize that given the obscene amount of estrogen I've been taking, it's probably a bit risky to be making long trans-Atlantic flights. So I started taking baby aspirin again stat (thanks for the heads up Mom!). DVT's are super scary, but considering my sister E nearly died a few years ago from a pulmonary embolism, it's a little too close to home for me. Hoping now that the stars align in our favor in March so I O sometime when we are both in the same time zone. Ah life is funny...

New nephew finally arrives!

My sister E finally had her baby yesterday @ 8:05am, a week late just like the other two. His name is Isaiah Richard (after his godfather). He weighed 7 lbs., 15 oz. and was 20 1/2" long. E and baby are doing well. Now off to the hospital myself!

The waiting game...

So the week has finally come (not that I'm counting down or anything) to get my pesky septum removed. It was nine months ago (ironic much) that I found out that I had this lovely defect. Funny thing is my sister E is also due (as of last Saturday) to have her baby. So we are both waiting, patiently. Her last two babies have each been a week late, so we'll probably be in the hospital at the same time. Except she gets to come home with a baby and I get to come home with nothing. The general concensus is that with the septum out I will get pg right away, but I've been through too much to put much stock in this. I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist plagued by bad luck. Here's to the week going by quickly...

My ABC's...

A = AF (yes she's here and she's very mad apparently)
B = BCP (for the first time in over three years they have crossed my lips)
C = Coco (he said goodbye last night and I actually managed to stay up to see the whole show, he's a class act)

So I got an unexpected visit from my dear sister J yesterday (well she did call a day ahead). She was on her way up to WI to be there when sister E has baby #3. I have missed the birth of the previous two, so I figure why break my streak now. It's too far to go and sit and wait for her to go into labor and once again this year, I'm in a new job and saving PTO for when we ever get pg. We went out to grab a bite and then played a friendly game of Scrabble (I proudly tied the english major, with the help of a dictionary) while we listened to the "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon. I am still so sick about what has and is still happening there. S was out late at his ITE dinner. Got up in the middle of the night with extreme cramping (wow I love it when the ibuprofen wears off in the middle of the night) and had to lay with heat for over an hour before I was able to fall back asleep. I don't remember the last time I had a good night's sleep... I'm sure that's really helping my fertility. I had my regular weekly acu appt. this morning, and I just love P, my acupuncturist. I really going to miss her next week when I'm post-op, as I won't be back to see her until the 6th.
It is so grey here today, I'd just kill for some sun. The upside is that's in the high 30's (a veritable heat wave) and the dirty snow is melting. Sadly, it is still still January in Chicago, so I know that it will be a LONG time until we will crawl out of the deep freeze. Looking forward to my GTG with ladies from The Bump boards tomorrow at WFM. It will be weird meeting them IRL, but it's healthy not living my life online. I'm still getting used to this blogging thing, so thanks for being patient. I'm going to pretend that someone might be reading this, it gives me an audience to play to. But I'm not really on top of my game today. Off to nap and do laundry!