Infertility Jewelry

I purchased the middle pendant from the photograph at left for my wife, and gave it to her over the past weekend. It is a pomegranate, which symbolizes fertility (actually, the seeds within the pomegranate symbolize the fertility - the rest, I'm not sure, but I thought it was a cool piece)

Vanessa Amalia is the jeweler. She owns and operates a studio in New York City. Her web-site can be found at http://www.vanessaamalia.com/. I e-mailed her to ask a question about the pendant and received a very quick, personalized response, almost immediately - very impressive. I e-mailed her again with a follow-up question and once again received a nice personal response in very short order. Even if I didn't like the piece, I would've ordered it anyway based on the excellent customer service.

My wife LOVED the necklace, and it was really inexpensive. It has a very nice heavy feel to it ... my wife already wants the bracelet and some other stuff from Vanessa's site - we even ordered a horseshoe pendant for my sister-in-law who is currently in the throes of a quarter-life crisis (somewhere in between college graduation and establishing her career / getting comfortable living by herself. She's single, so any of you ... er, wait ... it's unlikely that any of you 3 - 4 men reading this are single - nevermind)

A quote on the pomegranate:

The pomegranate is a magical and historical fruit, portrayed through ancient traditions as a symbol of luck. Its jeweled and abundant seeds promise generous futures, and represent love and marriage, fertility, prosperity, and life - in Greek tradition, pomegranates are often given as wedding gifts to ensure the couple a bountiful future together. The fruit is present in the Bible as well as throughout Greek mythology; Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was known for planting pomegranate trees wherever she went, while Persephone was forever bound to the underworld for eating the pomegranate given to her by Hades.

So guys - this is an easy, inexpensive "just because" gift ... I highly recommend you visit the site.

Failed, again

Spotting started ~3 days later than it normally did - nowhere near the improvement we hoped for with our latest regimen of increased dose of Femara, but is was a slight improvement. Now my wife will commence with a progesterone cream, to be administered 3 days after her positive ovulation test, once a day.

We're off to Jamaica next week where instead of timed intercourse we'll have intercourse all the time, and in place of limiting drink, we'll have rum for breakfast.

Should be a nice trip. Has been a great three years being married to my wife - she is a great person, and I'm lucky to be in her company every day.

Puncture

My wife just got done with her first acupuncture appointment, and she LOVED IT! I'm trying to get her to write a "guest post" about the experience ...

I've normally considered acupuncture to be included in the same category as other voodoo / witchcraft / hippy "alternative medicines" like homeopathy, chiropractic and massage therapy. But, if my wife likes it, and it relaxes her, and improves her view on her prospects for becoming pregnant, then I'm all for it.

I'm going home for lunch and won't be surprised if my wife has dreadlocks, is wearing a tie-dyed skirt, smoking a joint while a patchouli incense stick burns in the hand of a Buddha figurine.

A Poem - To My Sperm

So white and small, and all screwed up,
You started your day in a sterilized cup.
Playboys, Penthouse and Hustlers galore,
Assisted your release just in time for,
A walk down a hallway, on our way to see,
A nurse who would take you away from me,
In a rubber-gloved grip, you'll go to a lab,
Where you'll move into a syringe, and prepare for a stab,
Up through the vag, and through the cervix,
Into the uterus you'll fly in a fix.
Here you'll hang out for as long at it takes,
For my wife to ovulate.
When you see the egg, you'll swim like hell,
And if you get through, we'll think that's swell.
Some dual-headed, and others two-tailed,
We'll hope in two weeks that you will not have failed.
So relax while you can in your warm little vial,
Because soon enough you'll begin your trial.
Now ends my poem about insemination,
I hope real soon we'll get lots of congratulation.

The end

On Deck - IUI #2 (then Jamaica)

Wife took an ovulation test this morning and as it usually is on day 10 of her cycle (or somewhere around day 10, can't remember the exact day), it was positive - she's getting really good at forecasting the day on which she will get a positive test. She called it early last week saying "I should ovulate next Tuesday, putting us at Dr. M's office on Wednesday morning for our second IUI" - smart girl, my wife.

Her cycles are incredibly regular - I guess this is a very positive thing, and the fact that she is actually ovulating is even better. Also, the fact that she is only 27, and I about to turn 30 gives us plenty of time. So what, precisely, is the problem? Who knows ... maybe it was this progesterone thing all along? We'll find out if our increased dose of Femara will do the trick in a few weeks. Tomorrow morning we will go in for our second IUI - wonder if they got any new "Barely Legals" in over the past month? Can't wait to find out ... sooooooo excited.

We will go to Jamaica for a week at the end of this month for our third wedding anniversary - going to Couples Negril (we went to Couples Ocho Rios for our honeymoon and needless to say, we really enjoyed it, thus our return trip) It is a trip that is sorely deserved, especially for my poor wife ... until then I will be working at a feverish pace to wrap up my current assignment so I can make a clean break from work for a while - I need a break (have been putting in ~14 hour days for at least a month now). We're hoping my wife will be pregnant when we go ... and if not, we'll drown our sorrows in rum.

Hope you all are having a good summer.