Chasing A Child

36w1d

This week was all about trying to turn this baby. On Monday, the Mister and I went to the naturopath. She put a giant acupuncture needle in each of my little toes, gave me a nasty drink made of some kind of bark (to relax the uterine muscles), and left me to sit for about 10 minutes. Then she oiled up her hands, closed her eyes, and very gently rubbed around on my belly. Within about 30 seconds, she pronounced the baby to be head down and, by golly, I could feel it. There was definitely a skull in my lower pelvis instead of feet. Hooray! The Mister and I were shocked at how easy it was. The doctor said that the baby was probably already headed in that direction and just needed a little help to get there. Whatever it was, we were stunned.

I drove happily back to work. But within an hour, I could feel her thrashing around in there. No! Stay put! Ha. Like a child of mine will ever listen to me. She's apparently been taking lessons from Squeaker (aka The Obstinate One). The little bugger squirmed her way around until she was lying exactly sideways, head to my right side, feet on my left. This was confirmed on Tuesday when Doc gave me an ultrasound in her office. Baby was basically lying on her back with one foot dangling behind her (so as to be able to kick me in the cervix because, y'know, I might miss that sensation) and one foot stretched up my ribs. Fan-tas-tic. Doc, of course, promptly scheduled me for an ECV at 37 weeks, which is next Friday. Everything else about my appointment was fine -- same low blood pressure, no protein in my urine, baby measuring her usual small size (easily explained by the transverse position), and yay I tested negative for group B strep. The only problem we've got now is how to turn this child?

That night, we toured the hospital where I'll be giving birth. The birthing rooms are large, but, well, the environment still feels very much like a hospital. I think it will be fine, but I'm so glad I'm bringing a doula to help tone down the medical aspects of the place. And really, who am I to be picky? At this point, I'll be lucky if I get to use the birthing rooms, instead of getting wheeled down the hallway for a c-section. Of course, I'm always mindful of how incredibly lucky I am to be carrying a near-term baby at all, when so many women out there don't have that chance. Still, to be so close to my dream situation and yet so far is ... frustrating.

By the time I got to my yoga class on Wednesday, the baby had jammed herself into such a horizontal position that even my teacher could see how ridiculous it was. "Oh you poor thing!" Um, yes, ouch. Thursday's position was the same, and by the time I got home Friday night, I was miserable. I spent a lot of time doing cat-cow and precarious inversions off the couch, all the time thinking the worst -- I'd get to the ECV on Friday, the baby would turn, and then by Saturday she'd turn back and I'd be stuck with a c-section and they'd find out I had a misshapen uterus or some other as-yet-undiscovered anomoly ... My brain is awesome about jumping to conclusions if given a chance.

This morning I woke up to more serious thrashing around inside, and I realized that something was different. It really felt like she was turning in the right direction. I lay still, so as not to bother her. When the thrashing finished, I got up, and could tell that there was no longer a head in my right side. I couldn't find a head up in my ribs either. The Mister said my stomach looked much different, and so did my yoga teacher when I saw her. This afternoon I thought I felt kicking in my ribs, but there was also motion down below (could have been fists or feet) -- with this damn anterior placenta, it's nearly impossible to tell. All I know for sure is that whatever position baby has found, it's infinitely more comfortable than what she's been up to so far this week. Fingers crossed that this is it! I'll keep you posted.

****

To celebrate, I finished up the nursery. Luckily, the Mister was fine with the wall art. I think it turned out pretty well, given the limited space we're working with. The crib still has Squeaker's teeth marks on it, the stop light was a consignment store find, the changing table was a gift from my in-laws that just happens to match our existing dresser, the rug was a wedding gift, the chair rocks and the ottoman glides. I imagine I'll be spending a lot of late-night time in the corner under the tree : )

Horizontal

Oh my goodness I am just too darn twitchy for this bedrest stuff.  Seriously!  Hats off to the women who are on long-term medical bedrest and somehow emerge with their sanity intact. 

And hallelujah for technology.  Thanks to ye olde trusty laptop, I have managed to avert a few mini-crises at work and listen to most of a bar review lecture, all while lying mostly prone in bed (because if I were lying on the couch, the Puppy would be all over me and I couldn't get a spot of work done).  The Little Cat keeps coming in to curl up purring on my chest, head tucked under my chin so that I have to look up over her ears to see my laptop screen.  And the Mister is keeping me well-stocked with pineapple, pickles and water.  Pickle cravings are normal for me, so don't go getting all excited -- when I stop craving them, we'll know I'm pregnant.

Today's streaming bar review lecture was about Wills, as in "being of sound mind and body, I hereby bequeath ..."  But my mind keeps playing games with me.  When they say that Joe died intestate, I hear something about Joe's dead testicles.  When they say that a child is afterborn (born after the testator died), I hear something about afterbirth.  My mind has truly become one track and one track only.  All fertility all the time.

An embryologist called this morning.  "Are you bored yet?" she asked with a knowing chuckle.  As it turns out, none of our remaining embryos survived to freeze.  This was not unexpected, so we chatted for a few minutes, and I promised to let her know how things turn out.  I wonder if they get updates, or if they just care for the embryos until transfer and then are left wondering if their young charges grow to adulthood.  They must be told at some point, mustn't they? 

Yesterday's embryologist tried to get away with just telling us that we had two good blasts and two okay blasts.  When I asked her for the grades, you could see her think "uh-oh, she's one of THOSE"  as she flipped through my chart to check the stats.  Beware the informed patient. I'm glad I asked, because she went back to last cycle's stats to do a comparison.  Apparently, last time we transferred one good blast and 2 okay morulas. So having 3 blasts is an improvement, even if they aren't perfect.

The pre and post-transfer acupuncture experiences were very different from the treatments I've had so far.  Up to now, she has been placing needles between my toes, in my calves, on the outside of my wrists and sometimes one between my eyes (my favorite, because it puts me into a lovely half-sleep state).  Yesterday, there were needles between my toes, in my calves, on the inside of my wrists, in my belly (one over each ovary), in my ears (2 needles per ear) and one at the very top of my head.  Apparently the one at the top of my head was intended to cause everything to rise towards my head, including good chi and floating embryos, up up they go.  And although I usually never feel the needles, this time the acupuncturist said that I should feel a slight buzzing or spreading warmth from the needle sites, which I did.  It was really weird, but then it just felt great, and my whole body felt warm and tingly.  The Mister said I had a goofy little smile on my face, which I'm sure I did.

In hindsight, I must say that everything went remarkably well.  I felt like there was really a cohesive team working for us (despite the ditzy nurse**), and it was nice to know and be comfortable with all of them.  And now that I've had that nice supportive experience, may I never have to see any of them again in their official capacities after my beta! 

Well, except for the acupuncturist, who, as she was slipping out of the room whispered in my ear "Acupuncture can work wonders for morning sickness."

**[P.S. I meant to mention that the nurse who botched my IV at both retrievals was the nurse at transfer yesterday.  She picked up my hand and said with a completely straight face, "Oh, where did you get this ugly bruise?"]

Getting closer

A banner day yesterday for IF treatment: saw my RE for an ultrasound, went to lunch with the Mister, then had my last acupuncture treatment until the embryo transfer. 

My RE was all business.  "Okay, let's see how your follicles are doing." (pokes around vigorously with the wand) After a bit of poking, he grumbles, "Your ovaries are always so hard to find!" (poke poke poke poke poke)  My right ovary now has 11 follicles ranging from 8mm to 14.5mm with about 8 follicles on the left side ranging from 8mm to 12mm or so.  I can tell he's got his eye on the right side this time, and who wouldn't, with that 14.5mm monster outpacing all the others.  Still, it's hilarious to watch a medical professional literally get a gleam in his eye when talking about one's right ovary.  I hope the left one doesn't feel slighted.  Who knows, given my tendency to keep quiet in public until I have something to say, the strongest follicle in the bunch could be on the left side!  That follicle, whichever one it is, is just hanging back, perhaps hiding behind a bit of intestine (as they are wont to do), evaluating the situation until it knows it can dive in and fight with the best of them.  I'm going to hedge my bets for now and root for both sides.  My estradiol is at 1139.  Next ultrasound is Sunday morning at 7:45am.  The nurse told me I could come in my pajamas and fuzzy slippers.  I just might do that.

My acupuncturist is getting excited about the transfer.  She may have to cancel a ski trip to do it, but she promised to be there for me.  I was really touched by that.  Of course, she's a medical professional, and one expects doctors and nurses to have to work on their days off sometimes, but somehow I don't always expect the same level of self-sacrifice from someone wearing a t-shirt proclaiming her a "Celestial Goddess."  Nor do I hug my RE at the end of a session as I do my acupuncturist.  It's a different relationship.  I feel like she's going to be at the transfer if it's on a weekend more out of respect for me and the process I'm going through than because she is used to putting work over personal time.  It's almost more like friendship?  Women supporting women?  Something like that. Anyway, I think her being there will make a big difference.  Yesterday's session was one of the best.  Here's how I can tell my mind and body have come a long way because of this treatment: although the city was tearing up the street with jackhammers outside her office, I still went into a meditative-sleep zone during the treatment (with the extra assistance of a guided meditation CD playing in the background) and came out feeling incredibly refreshed.  She says my blood is strong and doesn't need to be built anymore.  My spleen is apparently still weak, but that's okay.  I'm ready to go.

This 'n that

Sometimes the ability to see how folks got to your blog can be a disconcerting thing.  For instance, today someone got here by googling "smell crotch morning", which of course shot them over to this puppy post.  I doubt that was exactly the kind of thing they had in mind ...

In other news, I played hookey from class for the first time last night.  Just could.not.face the prospect of listening to a perky young non-practitioner lecture for 2 hours on essay writing.  For god's sake, I have an English degree, I've been doing transactional work for years, and if I can't write an essay on the bar exam (even in that wacky IRAC formula they insist on), I have no business calling myself a lawyer.  My time was much better spent having dinner out with the Mister.  It felt like I hadn't seen him in ages.  Still didn't get to bed before midnight, but that's because we're currently hooked on The Wire and just had to watch two full episodes.

Injections are moving along.  I HATE Repronex.  It stings like hell and leaves little needle-sized welts on my aching belly.  Other than that, the process is all pretty much routine.  Nothing much to report.  Except that I've got to go out today and buy two or three pairs of trousers with a bigger waist, because I'm already swelling up to the zone of uncomfortableness.  I know it's not my ovaries growing yet -- it must just be the various drugs causing me to bloat up like a beached whale.  Anyway, it's a good excuse to go shopping and avoid studying.

After reading my last post, a friend suggested that I suck on a blue lollipop before my next acupuncture appointment and see what the acupuncturist has to say about the color of my tongue.  It's a really tempting idea ...

Zzzzzz

The worst thing so far about taking a bar exam review course while doing IVF is the way my whole body insists that it's time to go to bed right now at 9pm when there is still a half-hour of unbelievably dull lecture still to go.  It's not just that I'm sleepy or tired or nodding off.  It's that if I let my eyes close or my body relax for one second, I would quite literally fall out of my chair.  The carpet of the hotel banquet room starts to look softer and cozier as the minutes pass. And, of course, the lecturer speaks ... more .... slooooowly. They've brought in some live lecturers, which I thought at first would be better than watching the taped lectures, but alas, these are some of the most stilted pedantic lecturers walking the face of this earth.  My brain still whispers that I should just crawl under the table and lie down; "you could use your coat as a pillow ..." 

Today I start the stims.  I'm hoping that eventually the discomfort of growing baseballs where my ovaries should be will counteract the hormonal sleepiness. 

My acupuncturist was great when I told her that I'd started my cycle.  She immediately pulled out her calendar:  "Let's see, tomorrow is day 3 of your menstrual cycle, which means retrieval at the end of next week, no ... the beginning of the following week."  She's right, of course, but how lovely is it that there are acupuncturists so steeped in IVF protocols that they know off the top of their heads how long the stim cycle is?  I'm seeing her again next week, and then she'll come to the embryo transfer to make sure I'm relaxed before and after the transfer.  We talked some about the folks at my RE's office and how welcoming they are of her.  It's been my impression that this clinic believes in acupuncture's ability to increase IVF success, but it was nice to hear it from the needle woman herself. 

She said that my skin tone and color is much improved from the first time she saw me, but she was clearly disappointed with my tongue.  "You're right back where you were when we started," she said, shaking her head, adding that it's probably the suppression meds.  Pesky meds.  Don't they know that I'm trying to get pregnant here?   I can't get pregnant if my tongue isn't the right color!

Modulating

Saw my acupuncturist yesterday.  She seemed pleased with my progress.  Apparently, at my first visit my tongue was pink in the middle and white around the edges.  Now after 4 sessions and a month's worth of herbs, etc., it is increasingly pink in a uniform manner.  What this has to do with my overall fertility, I'm not sure, but it seemed to make her happy.  And if the acupuncturist isn't happy, ain't nobody gonna be happy.

Moving on to news from the lower midsection, the fertility software finally confirmed that I am now 9DPO. So that's kind of a relief.  I was starting to get visions of the acupuncture having some sort of weird negative effect on my cycle or turning off my ovulation completely.  Ten years ago, I would have said that any woman having thoughts like this must be a complete lunatic.  Welcome to the IF funny farm!  The fact is, however, that something seems to be happening with my BBT.  It is consistently lower than it has been for months (while still showing a clear biphasic pattern), which means, perhaps, that there is more estrogen coursing through my veins?  Did I read that somewhere, or am I making it up?  Is FSH connected to BBT in some way?  It has occurred to me that maybe I've been cooking my eggs a bit too much with the higher temps.  It's also possible, of course, that my lower BBT is just a function of the cold weather outside.  I could  be making up stories and leading you all astray.  Let's just say I feel more balanced and leave it at that.

The Mister is still out of town frolicking on a cruise ship or some such thing, so I met the guy upstairs last night.  Woowoo!  (Um, not.)  At about 11pm, which as those of you who know me will realize is a full hour past my allotted bedtime, Mr. Upstairs decided to throw his own personal Clash of the Choirs auditionfest -- right above my bed.  Yes, he danced, he sang, he (dare I say) belted his heart out.  I now have "Cry Me A River" indelibly etched in my aural nerves.  He sang it once a capella, then cranked up Mr. Sinatra's version to really get those trumpets blaring behind his vocals.  And then he left it cranked up while he went about his business, dancing his way around his apartment, while one floor below I lay there ... cranky and wide awake.  So I did something that I haven't done since I was in college when the drug addict guys who lived upstairs from my roommate and I used to work on their motorcycles in their living room at 2a.m.:  I went upstairs to complain, complete with fuzzy slippers and rumpled hair, so he would know that I was serious.  He was a cute little fella, Mr. Upstairs, holding the loudest pussy cat I've ever met (and our Big Cat can make some noise when he gets a mood on).  He stood there, cat squalling under his elbow, looking up at me with an angelic smile on his face:  "Music too loud?"  Um, yes, thanks.  And, amazingly enough, he turned the music down, and that was the end of it.  This was a strong contrast to my previous experiences with such late-night neighborly conversations.  As I recall, the drugged-up motorheads all those years ago swore a blue streak and slammed the door in my face.  My roommate and I woke up the next morning to find that someone had spray-painted "BITCH" on our cars.

Perhaps my luck is turning?

Balancing the building

New life next door. 

We live in an old apartment building -- if you're in SF or NY, you know the kind -- thick plaster walls, hardwood floors and high ceilings, an elevator with one of those cage doors.  People move in and out fairly frequently.  Folks are pleasant enough but there doesn't seem to be much socializing among neighbors.  We've become familiar with various neighbors through meeting their dogs in the park or riding the elevator with them often enough that when I say "oh, I saw that girl with the hair", the Mister knows which girl with which hair I'm referring to.  There's an old woman on the first floor who uses a small shopping cart as a walker when she strolls the hallways in her housedress, which must startle the apartment full of skateboarding kids just down the way.  Except for Shopping Cart Lady, the tenants are young, with the Mister and I on the older end of the spectrum. 

The young British couple next door moved in about 7 months ago.  They have a charming toddler (we learned recently that his name is Otto) and they often had a surfboard on top of their car this summer.  They leave their front door open a lot, using the hallway as extra space for Otto to run around in, and for a long time they had no furniture whatsoever in their apartment.  We know them just enough to say hello and make friendly chitchat, but not enough to remember their names, alas. 

I noticed a few months ago that the young woman, Otto's mother, was pregnant, but since I was engrossed in the middle of IVF#1 and the ensuing loss, I didn't pay  much attention.  Bill Clinton has nothing on me when it comes to compartmentalizing.  Emotional Walls R Us.  When I stopped to think about it, I was sure she must be only 5 or 6 months along.  Shows what I know.  Last Friday, the Mister met an older British woman (presumably a mother-in-law of some sort) in the hallway with Otto.   She told him that the baby, a boy, would be coming home that day. 

A newborn ... just inches away from our bedroom. After the initial Gulp, I've decided that I'm going to choose to see that as a good thing.  Perhaps it will make up for the out-of-balance karma from the 3-legged dog across the hall.  From a feng shui perspective, that dog has been causing me endless anxiety.

A lot of this IF stuff seems to be about balance and the lack thereof.  I'm reading a book about the use of traditional Chinese medicine in IF treatment.  There is a lot of focus on bringing things into balance -- what you eat and drink, how much you exercise, how you think, how you handle your relationships and your work life.  There are lists of foods that are "cold" and "hot" (associated with Yin and Yang), advice on which foods to eat when and in what order, so as to extend your body's ability to extract the nutrients it needs and not waste valuable Qi digesting difficult foods or food combinations.  There are acupressure points to push to stimulate various organs, and six magical sounds that will send healing vibes to your organs.  Odd concepts from a western perspective, but strangely logical too.

My acupuncturist says that my liver blood is better already.  Of course, she would say that to keep me coming in, but I think she's right that changes of some kind are happening.  I'm calmer in the midst of stress these days, and I seem to be sleeping better. My period was different in ways that I won't get into, but let's just say that the acupuncturist squealed happily when I told her.  I wish I could find/make more time for exercise.  That's the one thing that drives me nuts.  But I'll take a little bit of progress where I can find it.  And I'll be delighted when this damn head cold finally blows itself out of my head!

It's all about balance

Yesterday's acupuncture experience was very different from the first.  First, I was much more aware of how long I had been lying on the table.  No dream state, just various stages of meditation and fantasy and meditation and frenetic thinking and then, finally, wondering "have I been abandoned on this table forever?"  The difference: no needle between my eyebrows this time.  So the "valium spot" really is the secret for that falling asleep thing -- at least for me.  But it was a pleasant experience nonetheless. 

And I left with two bottles of Chinese herbs, one for building my blood and one for cooling my excess heat (yang).  Apparently, I am yin deficient, which makes a lot of sense, given my choice of career.  Yang (which I've got plenty of) is associated with the male and activity; not too many shrinking violets decide to go into law.  Whereas yin (which I lack) is associated with the female and rest (rest? me? ha!), among other things.  Of course, chalking it up to male/female is a gross oversimplification, but it helps to illustrate the concept.  It's also apparently common for women to develop a yin deficiency as they grow older, no surprise there.  Our fertility ebbs, our fluids start to dry up, essential elements of our female-ness begin to fade, leaving an excess of the dry male aspects of yang.  Makes perfect sense.  The herbs are meant to help balance all of this.

I started consulting Dr. Google about the various herbs.  Turns out that several of the base herbal ingredients are also used to treat hypoglycemia (low blood sugar).  Imagine that.  My Food Problem and my fertility problem may both be eased by these magic pills.  I thought that the herbs would come in tea form or perhaps a capsule, but they are little balls that look like small ball bearings or large BBs.  Three times a day I will take 8 of one and 4 of the other.  And then we wait.  Because I'm so good at that.

Tonight I'm baking pies for the family Thanksgiving gathering at my brother and SIL's place a few hours south of here.  I'm in charge of stuffing and dessert.  The plan was to make two apple pies and a pumpkin pie for 9 adults and 2 kids, but yesterday 3 more adults and 2 more kids were added to the list, sigh.  One can only bake so many pies before, well, running out of pie plates for one thing.  So this morning I'm sending the Mister out to get more stuffing ingredients and re-thinking the pumpkin pie.  Perhaps a pumpkin sheet cake instead? 

Chasing serenity

For those of you who've been holding your breath on my behalf, you may now exhale.  The 16th came and went with no period in sight, so no IVF cycle for me this month.  In fact, it appears from my temps that I just ovulated last weekend, which makes me wonder what the hell was happening a week and a half before that when I swear an egg the size of Texas burst out of my left ovary.  I have never felt ovulation pain, but that day I felt stim-like ovary cramps all day, and then just as I was paying for my lunch, I had to pause and double over for a moment.  The woman at the counter asked me if I was okay.  Um, yes, just fine.  Just a little mittleschmerz.  Or not.  My body is so confused at this point, who knows?

Folks have asked whether the acupuncture is working.  I'm not sure about that either.  From what I understand, it can take several sessions before there is a noticeable difference.  But it definitely reshuffled my status quo in some way.  I actually had a pretty bad headache for a few days afterwards, which felt similar to the nausea I sometimes feel after a deep massage or intense yoga.  It's got to be all those toxins exiting my body, or the old dusty chi moving around, stirring up meridians that haven't been used in awhile, or some such thing.  The headache eased after a few days and for the rest of the week I was pretty serene. 

Which was a good thing, because we received not one but four phone calls from collection agencies asking for one of the Wrong Men.  Nevermind that I haven't actually seen him in 5 years or that he and I broke up 2 years before that; nevermind that the number they originally had for him was on the east coast; nevermind that they probably tracked my current number through the phone company; nevermind that he is a member of a profession that is required to register their current contact information with the authorities and that information is available on the internet, so he is really quite easy to find if you get off your lazy butt and look; nevermind that the Mister has told them at least a million times that they're asking for his wife's ex-boyfriend and he isn't very pleased about that.  All these people care about is that they once were able to reach him at my old number; therefore, I should be the one they call now.  At 7 a.m. two days in a row. It's this kind of stuff that ended the relationship in the first place.

And of course it just gets me thinking yet again about how much time I wasted ... Blech.  Here's to happier days.

Last night, the Mister and I went out to dinner at our new favorite Ethiopian food restaurant.  Imagine our excitement, upon arriving in this New Town from the Big City, to find that there are enough Ethiopian restaurants that we can actually have a favorite one!  I have to hand it to the folks in the PNW -- they sure do know their food -- it's a mom and pop shop in a sketchy part of town, but the place was packed.

As we walked in the door, we found ourselves behind a family consisting of one rather harried looking caucasian mother, one caucasian couple who may have been friends or relations, and three beautiful children who we assumed to be of Ethiopian descent.  Which immediately put us in mind of our friends who are in the process of adopting kids from Ethiopia.  Yes, kids, plural.  They're brave folks.  If this IVF thing or egg donor thing or whatever the heck it is that we finally decide to do doesn't work and we end up adopting (which is, perhaps, what we should have done in the first place or should be doing now ... I can't help thinking thinking thinking and there are never any right answers), then I'll be proud to have our family share a community with theirs.  If their kids are anything like those kids last night, this corner of the world will be a lot brighter for their presence.

Listening to my pulse

My first acupuncture experience was quite lovely.  The acupuncturist works with my RE's clinic all the time, so not only does she know my doctor, she's familiar with the various protocols and knew all the right questions to ask about my fertility health and the procedures we've tried so far.  It was comforting talking with her about these things -- she's a warm, thoughtful woman with a lot of Buddhist magazines in her waiting room and tiny prayer flags on her office door.  She addressed everything from a systemic point of view, asking about my stress level, do I have headaches, what is my diet like, how is my energy, etc. With my RE, conversations tend more towards counting follicles and measuring estrogen levels.  Painting by numbers. Just the facts, ma'am.

Things are in boxes with western medicine.  Problems are addressed in pieces.  I'm trying to get pregnant; ergo anything that needs treatment must be related to my reproductive organs.  Whereas, the acupuncturist seemed interested in many parts of my body, regardless of their proximity to my ovaries.  According to my pulse and my tongue, my liver needs help building my blood.  Building my blood will enhance the blood flow to all sorts of places, including my ever-chilly feet, as well as my uterus.  As we all know, anything that makes the uterus happy is a good thing.  But she also plans to treat my stress, which can only make be a good thing, particularly if she can get rid of that nasty TMJ. 

She used 8 needles ("I prefer quality to quantity")-- one in my left foot, five in my calves, two in my wrists and one between my eyebrows ("my patients call that the valium spot").  The needles come in individual sterile wrappers, and are so thin that they bend like hair.  Totally painless.  Lights dimmed, fountain in the background, soft pillows, warm blanket under me ... I used it as an opportunity to practice meditating, bringing my monkey mind back to the breath every time it strayed off, which was frequently.  The treatment took about 25 minutes, but I swear it was only 5 minutes before she came back in saying "so, how was it?"

She also gave me a list of foods to enhance fertility, many of which I'm already eating.  Blue-green algae hasn't been on my table yet, and I have to admit, I may skip that one.  Tempting as it sounds, there seems to be some dispute about its healthfulness, so if you've got algae recipes you were ready to send, hang on to 'em for now. 

As an added bonus, my acupuncturist is certified in all kinds of eastern medicines, including the use of Chinese herbs to enhance fertility -- hallelujah, one-stop shopping!  So if my IVF cycle doesn't happen in December, I'll take the herbs for a month.  Just imagine how healthy I'll be.