Mon 29 Oct 2007
Nice Weekend, Big Week
Posted by Liza under Personal
We had a really relaxing weekend, which was sorely needed. Noah slept in until 7:30 am on Saturday! Then we had fun at our Kindermusic class.
The current class is Sign & Sing, which I think would be more valuable for a younger child, but is still fun, and Noah has started signing — beyond just “more” which he’s been using for well over the last 6 months. But this weekend, Noah also signed duck, car, up, down, and something else in class that I can’t remember. Since class started, he’s also done silly and in, with some reliability. We also have our own sign for veryveryfast, like when Thomas gets attached to a jet engine that accidentally gets turned on.
After class, we hung out with Emily (the teacher), Kathrine (her partner) and Laurel (their 2 year old daughter) until it was time for lunch and a nap. Laurel very generously provided me with all of the stuffed animals for sale and within her reach.
After naptime, Jill and Noah went to get Noah a haircut and to play at the park. Jill spent the evening studying and watching scary movies, while I wandered across the street to watch football (well, to hang out and have a beer) with some of our favorite neighbors.
Sunday, we skipped church and had a lazy morning followed by brunch at Waffle House and a trip to the playground, where we ran into some of other our favorite neighbors. After a super-extra-long nap, we went over to Liam’s house to trash their living room like rock stars play. We even managed to talk them into going out for pizza with us. Noah even scored a cool yellow car, which apparently isn’t as exciting to Liam as it was to Noah.
This is going to be a busy week, since I’m still playing catch-up from my crazy San Diego jaunt, have to sit at my desk and watch a two-day webcast, and tomorrow we have the consult with the new RE. If any of you are scientifically minded (Carrie?) and can suggest intelligent questions to ask about their allegedly magic potion, aka platelet-activating factor, please leave them in the comments!
October 29th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Um. On the spot. If you follow the link to the abstract of their published study, it says there’s no improvement if the sperm is not motile to begin with. So do you know if your frozen samples have good swimmers?
They also break down that 40 percent average in the pretty bar graph. The non-swimmers skewed that downward. With normal sperm, they say 53 percent *cumulative* pregnancy rate with the treatment — so how many cycles did they go?
Per cycle, it says, pregnancy was was 29 percent, or just shy of 1 in 3 odds if I’m reading the abstract right. You have how many vials left? Two? So not a sure thing, but apparently better than the old way.
And ask them if weaning will help.
Now, remember, I’m not a doctor, but I talk to lots of them on the phone.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Um. I should add, in case a probability prof happens along, that it wouldn’t be a sure thing with 1 in 3 odds even if you do have three vials left, cuz it’s possible to flip heads three times in a row, yadda yadda. It just somehow would feel better.
Best of luck, sweeties. You deserve it.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
What have results been since the study, and if it’s so great why isn’t it the standard of care at all fertility clinics?
Presumably this stuff is safe because it’s found in semen, but presumably they’re also upping it to not-seen-in-nature levels, so are there any lasting hormonal effects for you or future young’un?
How much more does this cost, and is that worth it for the improvement in odds?
October 30th, 2007 at 8:04 am
We know we have good swimmers — when people apply to be donors, they screen them pretty rigorously. I don’t recall the cutoffs, but I know that they were at least average post-thaw swimmers, and that our guy had a surprisingly high density of swimmers per ml. (In the cycle where Noah was conceived, they commented that they’d never seen so many in a sample before.)
Probabolistically speaking, I think the 1 in 3 odds over three cycles works out to being a roughly 65% chance, compared to a 49% chance over 3 cycles at the more usually cited 20% chance per cycle.
Interestingly, that’s the same rate as in 2 cycles with 30% odds, which would leave us with one more vial of swimmers to use for IVF.