A Little of This and A Little of That

Alisha says: As you probably know by know we are not ones to sit around when there are adventures to be taken. The past few weeks have been no exception and have included:
-Two trips to St. Edwards State Park, one for a walk/hike on a drizzly day and the other for some mountain bike fun on a beautiful sunny day.

 -A visit to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture of the Pacific Northwest. The museum is located on the UW campus so I walked up to meet Dave after work and we checked it out with some free passes that I got through the public library system. It was an okay museum with a few interesting things.
-On another drizzly day we visited the Asian Art Museum with free library passes and found it to be a much more interesting museum.

 -We took a nice hike to Cedar Butte in the Snoqualmie area before eating thai food at Araya's, one of our favorite restaurants.

-Last Saturday was a fun trip to Duthie/Grand Ridge for some more mountain bike action.
-And our Sunday morning stroll was a walk around the trails to the beach at Carkeek Park.

Spring Has Sprung

Alisha says: There are blossoms everywhere right now in Seattle. It is so beautiful. One of the main attractions for blossoms are the cherry blossoms on the University of Washington campus. We checked them out last week and they were pretty but today I took a picnic lunch up to campus to meet Dave and all I could say was "WOW"! The blossoms are at 100% and look amazing. We also checked out the Suzzallo reading room in the library on campus which looks like a room straight out Hogwarts where of Harry Potter might do some studying. Pretty fancy!

The ones below are from a week earlier:

Dave just finished up winter quarter and is done teaching for the rest of this academic year. He now will be focused on his research a bit more. To celebrate the end of the quarter we took an afternoon trip on Friday back to Galbraith for some more awesome mountain biking. We put the extra hour of daylight that we gained earlier in the week from the time change to good use. We took Chris and had another great afternoon shredding the trails. Then on Saturday Dave actually had to administer his final for both sections of his class. Who has ever heard of a final being scheduled for a Saturday? But, that was the time slot that he was assigned. Anyway, it didn't really matter because the weather had turned rainy. We still got out for a walk along Lake Washington in the afternoon.

A new braid that I tried. I think it worked well and looked cool.

IVF Part 4 : Transfer

Alisha says:
March 18, 2015

Yesterday was TRANSFER DAY! It was such an exciting day. I woke up a little restless but feeling excited. We got up and went for a nice run through Ravenna Park. Then Dave did some work while I got ready. It was St. Patrick’s Day so I wore a new green shirt for extra good luck. We then went on a special brunch date to Portage Bay before heading to the clinic. At the clinic we met with the embryologist to sign some more waivers and who showed and gave us a picture of the two embryos that were going to be transferred and said that they both looked great and had the highest rating. Then I was given a valium and taken back to the transfer room. Everything went smoothly and the whole process took less than 30 minutes. After the embryos were put in they showed up as a tiny white speck on the ultrasound, kind of crazy because they are so tiny. After everything was done I was moved to another room where Dave was brought back and I had to stay lying down for 15 minutes. Then Dr. Johnson/Jo gave me some post transfer instructions and we were sent on our way. Compared to the egg retrieval, the transfer process is a total breeze. I felt great when we left but was told that I need to act like I have a cold and take it easy for a few days. That is the hardest part because I feel fine but considering what it took and cost to get here, I will be a good patient and do what they say. Ann Romish from the ward is such a sweet kind older lady that I go with to children’s hospital knows what we have been going through and brought us a delicious dinner of corned beef/cabbage/potatoes and carrots for St. Patricks’ day and so that I could take it easy. She is such a sweetheart. Now we just wait some more. I have a blood test in three days to check my progesterone levels and then a blood pregnancy test in two weeks on March 31^st. The progesterone shots have been going okay, I’ve gotten much more comfortable with them. They do make you sore though.

The white speck are the embryos, well the embryos are in the white dot, they are actually too small to see but you see medium in which they were transferred. 

A Perfect Day

Alisha says: After our last mountain bike outing I couldn't wait to go again and was so excited for the trip that we had planned for the weekend. It really turned out to be a perfect day. On our way out of town we stopped at Top Pot Doughnuts which supposedly are the best in Seattle to test out the theory. I have to say that they were pretty tasty and the perfect high calorie snack to eat before we hit the trails. We then drove north by Bellingham to Galbraith mountain where there is a system of about 50 miles of trails. We hit the trails under blue sunny skies for over 3 awesome hours of single track bliss. We ate a late lunch at a great little cafe where they use local fresh products.

On the drive home I suggested that we detour just off the freeway in Mount Vernon to check out the daffodil fields. Dave wasn't sure what to expect or what I wanted to see but was impressed by the huge fields of bright yellow daffodils that go on and on. Definitely a great side trip, they were gorgeous. I kept saying over and over that it was a perfect day and we had so much fun. Before we were even home we were already plotting a time when we can head back for some more mountain biking fun!

Daffodils for Days

Spring in Seattle

Dave says: Spring has come early to Seattle which is a good thing. We've seen temperatures in the 50s pretty consistently and a decent number of sunny days in the last two weeks. A number of trees and flowers are already in bloom here. Last weekend, we hit the trails with Chris, Keith, Sarah, and Pauline. It was a nice day on Duthie/Grand Ridge with only a little mud.

On the final Saturday in February, we woke up on a crisp sunny morning and made it out for our first "big" hike of the season up Mailbox Peak. We went up the old trail and down the new trail which is a great way to do it because the old trail is crazy steep and gets you to the top in half the distance but might not be as fun going down. On the way up we gained 4,000 ft. of elevation in just 3 miles. Alisha still likes to put the hurt on going uphill! We hit the snow line near the top and ascended through boulders in some pretty fresh powder to reach the famous mailbox at the top along with 360 degree views. On Sunday, we rode the HT29s around Lake Union for an easy spin and it was beautiful. It has been a busy couple of weeks at the university and I just gave a presentation to the faculty on Friday but now the quarter is almost at an end. I've really enjoyed teaching but I'm also looking forward to the break.

IVF Part 3: Waiting

Alisha says:
Friday, February 13, 2015

Now we are just in the another waiting time in which I have been on birth control for a few weeks while my body recovers and then I will be taken off them and will start a new set of injections in order to grow the endometrium lining for the transfer. My new box of meds/injections arrived and this time the shots are delestrogen and progesterone in oil and have to be given intramuscular (in the muscle)in the back of the hip area which requires a much bigger and longer needle that I had to use for the stimulating medications. The needles are  1 ½ inch long and are a little intimidating. I had injection training yesterday at the clinic, they said that you can give them yourself but it is easier if someone else does so we will see if I can talk Dave into doing it, he wasn’t too excited about the idea. After that I had to have another saline sonogram to make sure that no cysts or polyps had developed in the uterus. It is a simple procedure but they had a hard time feeding the catheter in and it ended up taking almost an hour and several attempts. Eventually they even had to use a tenaculum. Because of the trouble they had with the SHG they decided that it would be best to do a mock transfer to figure things out before the actual transfer.  The mock transfer was scheduled for the next day so back to the clinic I went, luckily it went smoothly and they have some notes and measurements for when they do the real embryo transfer.

February, 25, 2015

Yesterday we had a meeting with Dr. Johnson to discuss some lab results. Because I have technically had two miscarriages I had to get a panel of blood tests done to see if a blood lipid thing could be part of the problem. My results came back border line for one of the lipid and usually the treatment is to be on injections of heparin two times a day for the first trimester. I wasn’t sure if this was something that I wanted to do since the result was only border line and after a good discussion Dr. Johnson left the decision up to us and we decided that we are not going to use heparin this time.

 That night I was supposed to begin my delestrogen injections so while I was at the clinic I had them draw some target circles on my backside for where to aim. I decided that I would give myself the injections and spare Dave the experience. I thought I would be totally brave and just be able to do it but I have to admit that it was a little intimidating. I drew up the injection and then just stared at the needle thinking that it was big. I had to psyche myself up and then I just did it and the actual injection really wasn’t that bad. It made me a little sore but not too bad. I have to give this injection every third day up until the transfer when I will stop these shots and switch to progesterone injections which I hear really do make your derriere sore.

More meds to get ready for the transfer/post transfer. I ended up giving myself at least 115 injections and going through 22 vials of progesterone.

Going Underground

Alisha says:  When I looked at the extended forecast on February 1st all it showed was straight rain for the next 10 days. So the first week of February was a little rough for us. Still wanting to do something fun on Saturday we decided that a great rainy day activity would be to use a groupon that I had purchased for a Beneath the Streets Tour of the historic part of downtown Seattle. We learned some interesting history of Seattle and go to go to a few of the underground areas.

Here is a brief recap:
Seattle was originally built on a tidal mud flat and buildings were made out of wood. What this meant for the city was that twice a day the tide would come in and cause problems with flooding and the sewage. In 1889 there was a great fire where 31 blocks of the city burned. When starting to rebuild the city it was decided that in order to try to fix the tide/flooding problem they would raise the streets, all new buildings had to be constructed of fire safe materials and at least three stories tall. A retaining wall would be build surrounding each city block and then the place where the street was would be filled with dirt. Once the streets were filled with dirt a new sidewalk would be built and what used to be the 2nd floor of the buildings was now the entry level. For a time before the new sidewalks were built that were level with the new street you would exit a building by the original 1st floor, be greeted by a big retaining wall on which the new street rested, walk to the corner, climb up a 12-30 foot ladder, cross the street and climb down another ladder. Not one person died in the big fire but apparently several died and lots were injured using the ladders.

Once the new sidewalks were built the now underground levels went through several stages where they played host to many shady dealings before they were eventually condemned. Some of the underground areas have been restored and are in use and others look terrible. It was neat to see the pieces of old glass that worked as skylights.

The underground, the current sidewalk is on top of the ceiling

The original sky lights that you can still see if you walk around

 This is what the skylights look like from underground

 After our tour we went and checked out West Seattle and Alki Beach. You get a great view of the Seattle skyline across the water. And the fun day continued in the evening with a session at the climbing gym and dinner with Sarah and Chris.