Another IVF Back On The Table

My wife's sister called last night and said she was up for carrying our baby for us. My wife was trembling while she was on the phone with her. I talked her down, a little, since we want to keep our expectations realistic: though this may well be our best shot at our own baby yet, the odds are still against us. We're hoping, though, that the big factor was my wife's health and the conditions in her uterus. We're also hoping we get some extra embryos to freeze again this time. Oh heck, we're hoping for a baby.

Meanwhile, we have an adoption orientation meeting/class coming up. We're going to be laying what groundwork we can for that, particularly researching adoption agencies. (Any tips, recommendations, or warnings are welcome. Please comment.)

Infertility Endgame

It looks like we're going into the final stages of our fight with infertility. Our plan was to do a couple IUIs with my sperm supplemented with a donor's, then if that didn't work (and odds are it wouldn't) we'd try one last IVF with my wife's sister as the carrier. After a bit of delay, I looked over the info we had on donors and picked one I thought matched me best. (Redheads are scarce among sperm donors, by the way, so if you're a healthy male redhead who wants to make a few extra bucks, head on over to your local sperm bank.) It was a bit late to catch that cycle, so we waited until the next month.

The next month is here. In the mean time my wife has gone back and forth on whether she could do another IVF, so that's still technically up in the air, but I think if it comes to that she'll come to a point sooner or later where she's up for it. Her sister has also been having second thoughts. It seems their mother has been pressuring her to do it. I think we should tell their mother we've decided not to do it that way, for some sort of medical reason, just to take the pressure off. It's possible whatever reticence she's feeling is from an instinct to resist the pressure.

As I said, the next month is here and today my wife expressed some doubts about doing the IUI. It's a more expensive proposition with donor sperm in the mix (so to speak,) not likely to work, and with her health issues it would be a high-risk pregnancy if it did work (even though her health has improved with better diet & exercise habits.) I told her we shouldn't do anything unless and until she is comfortable with it. She went off on an errand, saying she'd think about it while she was out, and order sperm when she got back if she thought she was ready.

After she left I realized I had felt a bit of relief when she talked about not doing the IUI. As the time went by the thought of ordering that sperm, and having my wife pregnant by another man got me sicker and sicker. I realized I couldn't handle it, at least not yet, and, with the doubts she was having, maybe this approach just wasn't right for us.

When she got back I told her what I thought. She says she agrees.

I guess the plan now is to see what happens with her sister. If she and my wife sync up on the IVF we'll try that once. Beyond that, there's adoption which we may start looking into soon regardless.

This infertility thing is not for sissies.

Thoughts On Iron Man, Spiderman, And ILM

I saw the trailer for Iron Man recently, and I have to say it reminds me of the recent Spiderman movies. By that I mean I'm seeing the same stilted motions in the CGI characters. ILM did the work on all the films, from what I gather, but they also did the work in the Star Wars prequils. The stormtroopers were completely convincing, even with so many of them on screen at once. If I hadn't heard otherwise I would have thought at least some were live actors. But both Spiderman and now Iron Man look like they're computer generated. There is never a moment's doubt watching them. Why is this?

I can think of three possible explanations...

A: ILM is perfectly capable of producing convincing animation of human characters, but only does so for Lucas.

B: ILM is perfectly capable of producing convincing animation of human characters, but will only give their clients what they're willing to pay for, and Sony and Marvel were only willing to pay so much.

C: ILM is perfectly capable of producing convincing animation of human characters, but only if basing them on the movements of a living model. They had live actor stormtroopers from the original Star Wars trilogy to work from, but for the Marvel superheroes only had still images from comic books. And let's face it: those comic book drawings evoke some very dramatic motion, but they are not realistic poses by any stretch of the imagination.

So what do you think? Is it A, B, C, or something else?