Happy 2016!

Looking back on 2015:

• TTC: We got pregnant! While it didn't happen right away, it still happened relatively quickly and we are so excited and grateful for what's to come.
• Housing: Housing in the Bay Area is just too crazy $$ so we decided to stay put and remodel to make our house more comfortable and kid-friendly. Two new bathrooms, a fireplace, a fan, and living room recessed lights have made a big difference! We loved the new recessed lights so much we are looking to add them to a few more rooms. Hopefully we can get that done before baby Lucas arrives.
• Career: The new position I started with last year didn't exactly turn out as planned. I embraced leaning in and landed a job at a completely new company with a ton of growth potential and opportunity. So while I didn't end up where I thought I would, I did learn and grow in a new job, so I think this one worked out okay. 
• Life: I'm continually striving to live a life that is worthy of all the goodness and blessings I've received. It's a journey, not a destination, so hopefully I'll never feel "done" with this goal!
• Travel: While this was not a specific 2015 goal, I feel the need to add it in because I don't think we'll be doing too much travel for awhile! This year, I managed to hit up LA, Boston, Maui, Santa Barbara, New York, Las Vegas, Vancouver, Kyoto, and Taipei.  

Looking ahead to 2016 Goals:

• Appreciate Baby Lucas, even when it's really hard. Remember that this is what we desperately wanted and hoped for, even when we're tired, cranky, and upset.
• Appreciate what a great husband and father Jeff is. I know that almost all couples fight more during the first year of parenthood. I want to continually remind myself of how much I love him for who he is and everything he does for our family.
• Get in shape after giving birth. Hopefully I can get back to running regularly afterwards. Strangely enough, I kind of miss it!
• Make it to my first anniversary at my new company. Even if my maternity leave is amazing and I love staying at home, I want to at least try the working mom gig for awhile to make sure that it's what I want to do. Luckily, Jeff's company has a great paternity leave policy that will give me peace of mind that Lucas is in good hands for 12 weeks while I get my first experience as a working mom.
• Trying to take a trip with baby Lucas. I'm hoping we can manage a road trip or a plane ride down to LA at the very least. The stretch goal here would be to fly to Taiwan so that he can meet his extended family there. The in-between goal would be to take a few days off to somewhere just a few time zones away, like Honolulu. Let's see how this pans out!
• Document his first year. I want to try and have a professional photo shoot once a year. Our photog got some amazing shots of the 2.5 of us during our maternity shoot so we're very much convinced that the experience is very much worth repeating for our growing family each year.
• Have a plan for baby #2. I'm not getting any younger so by next year, I need to at least be thinking about this...and as a stretch goal maybe even trying for this if my body is ready? One of my good doctor friends Christina specializes in this field and said that realistically at our age (early/mid 30's), we don't have the luxury of waiting 1-2 years between babies. Gulp.

Hakone Gardens, January 2016

My "First" Father's Day

My parents divorced when I was very young and the family situation is complicated, so Father's Day has never been a holiday that I celebrate. This year's Father's Day marked the first time the holiday has been a cause for celebration in my life:

It's still extremely early so anything could happen at this point - but we're reveling in cautious excitement in the meantime! 

Dream A Little Dream

Nearly four years ago, I had a dream that my brother and sister-in-law found out they were expecting and the due date was May 26. I woke up with a weird feeling, wondering if I should tell them about my dream. On the one hand, I knew that they were hoping to conceive and I didn't want them to think I was pressuring them. On the other hand, it felt weird that my dream was so oddly specific with the date. In the end, I decided to text this tidbit to my brother and left it at that. He didn't respond to my text and I didn't follow up. In fact, he didn't make any reference to the text until over a month later - to announce that they were expecting their first baby on May 16. So I was a little off but I was pretty close!

Pantheon, Rome, June 2011

Oversharing and Refocusing

Jeff is an oversharer by nature so when we decided to start trying for kids, I had to remind him not to share this with all our friends. To my surprise, he readily agreed. I think at the time, we both assumed it would happen really quickly so it wasn't something he would have to keep to himself for too long. We're both still in our early 30s, we exercise 4-5 times a week, eat healthy most of the time, and my period is relatively regular so we assumed that we were in good shape.

While it's only been 4 months in, I'd be lying if I said we weren't disappointed that we're still very un-pregnant. It's not that the 4 months have been unbearable - it certainly doesn't compare to women who have had to struggle with infertility for much longer periods of time. But it does scare us, as we don't know if this is just the start of a difficult journey that could last much longer than 4 months. No one ever talks about the journey - you only hear about pregnancies when people are safely out of the first trimester. People like me are part of the problem because we don't want to talk about it. That's because if we talk about it, our well-meaning friends take that as a sign to ask for a status update. Isn't it obvious that if I had news, I would tell you when the time is right? In the meantime, the only status updates I have are TMI so please don't ask for them!

It's strange how my worries over SCA3 are now transferred to worries over not being able to have kids. In the grand scheme of things. I know we're in a much better place now than we were 5 months ago - I'd much rather be infertile than have Jeff be afflicted with SCA3. I really haven't taken the time to really be grateful and appreciate for that blessing since we heard the news, because we've been so preoccupied with trying. So from this month forward, we're going to focus on how much God has blessed us in our lives, instead of worrying so much about the children we don't have.

Best bruschetta ever, Cinque Terre, Italy, June 2011

Looking for symptoms when TTC

I was reading on hellobee.com about how women trying to conceive assume every feeling is a pregnancy symptom and it rang so true for me. In the last month and a half, I've become hyper aware of twinges in my general middle area. I keep thinking "Could this be a pregnancy symptom? I'm so sure I've never had this feeling before!" and then my period comes. Chances are, I've had those same minor aches before but I just never noticed them until now.

I also think that I'm feeling nervous and excited, which is manifesting itself as butterflies and I'm misinterpreting as a symptom. I have a lot of respect for women who are able to exude such calm and confidence in the TTC process. Patience is not my strong suit! But we're early on enough in the process that we're feeling positive rather than anxious. At least I am, Jeff seems to be feeling a bit more antsy. He's already talking about temping and charting, which feels a bit overkill right now. I'm hoping his antsiness doesn't rub off on me. Here's to staying positive and stress-free!

Life Planning While TTC

Trying to plan for life while trying for kids is new and nebulous territory for me. It's hard to plan for something that could happen right away or may not happen for a year or more. Of course, we are doing the obvious things like saving money and planning for the right housing situation. However, there are other not so obvious things that we're unsure of how to plan for.

Being a Bridesmaid in a Friend's Wedding
I have two close friends that have asked me to be a bridesmaid in May and August of this year. I could see this going one of two ways:

Scenario A: 

I'm uncomfortably pregnant and unable to help at all - in fact, I may be more of a hindrance than anything else since people may think they need to tend to me rather than the bride.

Scenario B:

I'm not pregnant or I'm pregnant but feeling great and able to perform all bridesmaid duties as normal.

I've committed to being a bridesmaid for both weddings, as I love both friends dearly and want to be there for them! I would be so upset if I turned them down and Scenario B came to fruition. However, I do know that if Scenario A happens, it could be a huge hassle and inconvenience for them. So to try and mitigate the effects of Scenario A, I'll try to let my friends know if I suspect this is going to be the case as soon as it makes sense. I don't really know exactly when is "as soon as it makes sense" - are they the second and third calls I should make once I have positive pee stick results? Hopefully I'll figure it out if and when I get there, and it will be early enough for them to make other arrangements.

Making Travel Plans

So far, we have no major international trips planned for this year, as we assume we will want to hoard as many vacation days (and money!) for any potential bundle of joy. However, there are other smaller trips we're not sure about. An old college friend is getting married in Vancouver over Memorial Day weekend and we'd love to attend, and possibly tack on a few extra days to visit Banff National Park. My friend getting married in August is having her wedding in New York. I think I should be able to make both trips but then again, some of my mother friends have told me about feeling absolutely miserable for a large part of their pregnancy and couldn't imagine getting on a plane during those awful periods. I'm hoping I'll be able to suck it up and be there for our friends if that's the case but having never felt the pain of pregnancy, I have no clue if that will be possible.

Trivial Everyday Stuff

Trying to conceive has infiltrated some of my most mundane decisions. Is it okay for me to have some unpasteurized brie cheese? When is a good time get a perm? (Whether or not I should get a perm is a totally separate debate I'm having with Jeff - he's not a fan of perms.) Should I be switching out our household products to safer, more organic versions? How do I politely demur when well-meaning friends and family offer me certain foods without being too obvious? It's particularly hard if it's a food they know I typically love (like bubble tea...or uni!). 

Am I overthinking it? Is this normal? Some days I feel like a crazy person!

Queenstown, New Zealand, November 2013

New Year, New Me rambles

Is it too late to have a New Year reflections post? Maybe I should have saved this for Chinese New Year instead. :)

I worked with a manager at my first full-time job that gave me some advice about approaching the new year. He told me to set goals for myself every year and he gave me examples of some of the annual goals he had set for himself in the past: get married, buy a house, etc. At the time, I remember thinking "whoa those goals are totally not in line with my life stage! His advice doesn't apply to someone like me." But every now and then, his advice would come to mind and I'd think...hey it doesn't seem so crazy. He didn't tell me to buy a house or get married every year - he was just telling me what his own accomplishments had been. I can set whatever goals make sense for my life. Big duh to 22 year old Emily.

In addition to looking forward, I also think it's important to look back and see where we've been. The idea is not to limit ourselves ("but we've never done that before!") but rather have that act as a guide for where we may want to go next.

2014 Highlights

• We found out that Jeff does not have SCA3. A huge relief and an even bigger blessing.
• We had some amazing travels to Italy, Taiwan, Japan, and New York.  
• After a few setbacks, I was offered a new job on a different team working on some cool things that I'm really excited about.
• Jeff also transitioned to a new role as part of a re-org that more closely aligns with his career goals and interests.

2015 Goals

• Try not to go crazy with TTC. We will do what we can to facilitate the process naturally but everything beyond that is out of our hands. I don't want to feel like a total failure if this year does not end with a pregnancy or a baby. After all the research I did around IVF, I don't think that's the route I want to go but who knows...we'll see if/when we get to that point.
• Potentially explore new housing, depending on outcome of goal #1. Obviously, if there is no baby, our current setup suffices just fine. But otherwise, we'll have to figure out if we can repurpose our current place or move to a new house.
• Learn and grow in my new job. Pretty self-explanatory.
• Live with gratitude. God has given us so many good and wonderful things in this life - let's live in such a way that is worthy of those blessings.

Taipei, Taiwan, January 1, 2010

Revisiting the idea of kids

I jumped the gun with getting an OPK last month before we even knew that Jeff did not inherit his mom's SCA3. At the time, I wanted the distraction and thought it would be a good idea to track ovulation, just in case. But now that we know there is no risk of SCA3, sh*t just got real. I think that means next month, we are officially "trying to conceive." Umm...time to gorge on soft cheeses, runny eggs, and sushi this month!

The shift is a bit extreme, since I've spent the last six and a half years believing that pregnancy is the scariest thing that could happen to us. I was terrified of SCA3 taking its toll on Jeff and our kids. Suddenly, I've gone from preventing kids at all costs to hoping that we can have two healthy children. Both of us enjoyed growing up with siblings and continue to have close relationships with them, and we would want the same for our children.

Still, I know that fertility is not something to take for granted, especially now that I'm in my 30s. That's why we still haven't told anyone beyond our closest family members about the results of the SCA3 test. Friends are already constantly asking us if we're expecting. The questions would only multiply tenfold if they knew that SCA3 was no longer a risk factor (our good friends know about the SCA3 risk in Jeff's family).

On another note, is there a reason that so many people believe that it's okay to relentlessly hound couples with questions of their fertility status? I love my friends and they're generally awesome people but their constant questions are driving me crazy! Is it really necessary to ask me if I'm pregnant every 3 weeks? I wish I could share the great news of the SCA3 diagnosis but because they are always so nosy about the status of my womb, I know it will only get worse.

If kids don't happen for us, I know that Jeff and I still have incredibly blessed lives to be  thankful for. I hope we continue to remember that throughout our lives.

Napa Valley, August 2008

Tomorrow...

I can't believe that after 12 years of wondering, agonizing, and planning together, we might finally get the SCA3 test results tomorrow. I say *might* because this process has involved so much waiting, it's hard for me to imagine there won't be further delays. So it's possible that after all my melodramatic pontificating, tomorrow will be just another day. But if it's not, I'm hoping for the best and preparing for worst. So here are a few of our next steps as preparation if things don't go as hoped for:

- Ask the genetic counselor for a retest with another lab to confirm the results.
- Provide the results to the endocrinologist and genetic counselor so that the genetic probe can get set up. I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about IVF but I can at least get the process kicked off while I think about it.
- Adjust our health, life, and long term insurance policies accordingly.
- Start house hunting for a home without stairs for easy accessibility. Ideally, we'd like a ranch style home but that comes at a huge premium in the Bay Area so we'll have to see what we can manage.
- Pray for peace, hope, and understanding to maintain our spiritual grounding and mental sanity.

Jeff worries that our communication might break down and I'll shut him out. When we had our first serious talk about SCA3 as college juniors, I struggled with what I should tell him and what I should keep to myself. I was afraid that whatever I said might compel him to get tested for all the wrong reasons. I desperately wanted to know if he had SCA3 but I didn't want him to get tested and possibly ruin his life if he couldn't handle the results. There was a one hour train ride where we sat in silence because I couldn't trust myself to say the right thing. The memory of that train ride still haunts him. I had to remind him that I wasn't shutting him out, I was demonstrating a tremendous amount of maturity for a 20 year old under a lot of pressure!

It's hard to imagine that after tomorrow, our lives could be changed forever. I wish it didn't feel so binary - that it has to either be great news or terrible news. There is no in-between. It feels like my heart is about to burst from all the suspense of waiting. Hoping that it doesn't drop, break, and shatter from bad news. Feeling too scared to anticipate good news. I don't know if I will be ready to talk about it right away. We'll just have to take it one day at a time.

Woolamai Beach, Australia, 2011

I normally post random travel pictures to accompany these serious blog posts but this one is oddly appropriate. It seems like Jeff is facing the great big unknown all by himself but it doesn't mean he's alone - I'm behind the camera taking this picture. And I've got his back.

Still waiting...

I'm finally done with all my Italy and New York recaps, so it's back to the regular stuff for now until our next trip. It was fun to turn this space into a travel blog for awhile - if only I could be a professional travel blogger. :)

Jeff got the SCA3 test the week we left, but it's going to be another 2-3 weeks before we can get the results. Even though the date is getting closer, it still feels far away so the reality of it hasn't quite set in. I hate that there's so much time in between the testing and the results. I suspect they do that on purpose so that you take the time to weigh your decision and the possible consequences of either result. I've been thinking about this on and off for the last 12 years so I feel like I've had the time to digest our decision, although I can't say we'll ever be fully prepared for it. I can't guarantee we won't second guess our decision and back out of our appointment but as of right now, we're pretty determined to stay on course with our plans.

In the meantime, I've started taking some preliminary steps to get my body baby-ready for if/when that time should come. It may seem like we're counting our chickens before they hatch but I like to be (over) prepared and we need the distraction in the meantime.

I stopped taking birth control pills in September, as my doctor said it could be a few months before my body starts ovulating again. I reluctantly bought a Clear Blue Digital Ovulation Predictor Kit with 20 sticks for $35. They're expensive but highly rated and easy to use. I didn't realize until after I bought the kit that it doesn't confirm ovulation, it just detects the surge of hormones that typically precedes ovulation. Oops.

I have a 30 day cycle so according to the instructions, I should have started testing on cycle day 13. That seemed kind of late to me - I assume ovulation happens around day 15 so the hormone surge could be day 13-14, as it occurs 24-36 hours before ovulation. If ovulation happened any earlier, the OPK could miss the surge altogether so I decided to start testing on day 10. The smiley face came on day 13 so I'm glad I started a few days earlier and I didn't have to waste too many sticks until I got to the smiley face (which indicates the hormone surge). I tried doing some research on when to start testing but I found mixed opinions/ideas - start tests on day 6, wait until day 13, test twice a day, test first thing in the morning, test anytime except first thing in the morning...it was so overwhelming and inconsistent! Either way, starting on day 10 worked for me, assuming I didn't get a false positive.

I also started taking folic acid supplements with my regular daily vitamins, as my doctor says that folic acid is the only supplement proven to make a difference. In fact, women should start taking them a few months before they start trying to conceive so I'm not actually jumping the gun on this one. I'm also looking around for a pre-natal vitamin to start taking once I run out of my current vitamins. Even if the other supplements aren't "as proven" in terms of pre-natal health, it can't hurt to get more vitamins in my body.

Even with the distraction of peeing on sticks and finding vitamins, the SCA3 test results are always in the back of my mind. Still waiting, still praying, still holding for now.

Sydney Opera House, Australia, August 2011

IVF, PGD...OMG so many TLAs!

Jeff and I always knew that if we were to have kids, we would do everything we could to minimize/eliminate the risk of them inheriting SCA3. I most likely won't outlive my hypothetical children and the possibility of them having this debilitating condition without anyone to take care of them just breaks my heart. From Jeff's perspective, he knows how much of a burden it can be to carry this dark cloud around and he wouldn't want to pass that on.

With that in mind, we scheduled consults with a reproductive endocrinologist (RE) and a genetic counselor earlier this year. Even though we still weren't sure if we wanted kids, we wanted to understand the options. Fertility treatments can be difficult on a woman's body and I'm not sure how much I'm willing to go through for children. Sometimes I feel like that means I don't deserve to be a mother but that's probably another conversation for another day.

The RE suggested that Jeff get tested for SCA3 because if he didn't have it, we wouldn't have to go through treatment and genetic analysis. While this is probably the most logical,straightforward option, this one has been really hard for Jeff and I to wrap our heads around. Like I explained in this post, we want to live our lives without an SCA3 diagnosis looming over our heads. But we also realize that if Jeff has the condition, he is likely to start seeing symptoms in his early 40s, based on family history. It would be one thing if we could live carefree for another 20-30 years - but based on his current age, it might just be another 7-10 years. If that's the case, we may have to get a lot more serious about future planning (with or without kids). So maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to get tested now.

If the results came back positive for an SCA3 diagnosis, our RE said that IVF coupled with PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) can virtually eliminate the risk of having children with SCA3. The first step would be to get Jeff's DNA to set up the genetic probe to test the embryos against - this can take 3-6 months. Once this step is complete, then we would start the IVF process. I would get injections to stimulate egg production for 7-12 days, during which there would be daily 30-minute appointments with the RE to monitor egg development. Once the eggs were ready, they would be combined with Jeff's sperm to create embryos. The embryos would be screened either day 3 or day 5, depending on how they develop. Later is better but not always feasible.

We asked the RE if it was possible to do blind PGD so that we wouldn't need to find out if Jeff had SCA3. She seemed to think this was a strange request and said it wouldn't make sense to do it blind. However, our genetic counselor spoke with our RE and confirmed it was doable. I'm not sure how much information they share when conducting blind PGD. Would you know how many eggs you started out with? Would you know how many embryos made it to day 3/5 for screening? All that speculation and guessing would probably drive me crazy, I'd probably just want to know. But then again, maybe not?

After all that fact finding and discovery, I became terrified of the idea of having a child. IVF is incredibly hard for a woman to endure physically and emotionally. Getting plumped up by hormone injections so that I can produce more eggs sounds like something that is done exclusively to chickens, not humans. Plus, the idea of PGD makes me a bit uncomfortable. It seems like I'm trying to play God and determine which child gets to live and which child has to live in a freezer indefinitely. To be clear, these are just my own personal feelings on this. I think women that go through this for the dear children they will have and already love so so much are incredibly courageous and brave. I just don't know if I could handle all that.

We are leaning towards Jeff getting tested at this point. But if we find out he does have SCA3, I don't know if I will have the strength to go forward with IVF and PGD. He believes that if we find out he has SCA3, we have even more reason to have a kid because we would need that hope to look forward to and keep going. On an emotional level, I know he's right but on a practical level, my head and mint.com are screaming no. I pray that we never have to make that painful choice.

Iguazu Falls, Argentina, March 2010