LD Turns 10 — IVF Reminiscing — Dragon Birthday Cake

After we got back from our Colorado trip, LD had a birthday. It’s hard to believe he is now 10!

As many of you know — and some of you probably don’t — LD and DD are IVF babies (not ED, though!!! She was our surprise baby!).  We had trouble getting pregnant and there didn’t seem to be much of a cause for it. Oh my goodness, what a stressful, sad, difficult time for us. It seemed like everyone we knew were having babies left and right… and there sat Hubby and I — desperately wanting kids and wondering what the future held for us.

Because we lived so remote (in central Australia) they said the only option for us really was to head straight to IVF. We had to travel 1,500km (nearly 1,000 miles) to the nearest IVF clinic. Imagine coordinating shots, medication, exams — all remotely.  Yeesh.  Plus, the only OBGyn in our town had botched some exploratory surgery and I didn’t trust him any longer.  I worked mostly with a blood lab in town and coordinated things with the nurse 1,000 miles away. Hubby did all my shots.

All things considered, it worked out well for us, though there were bumps and incredible hiccups along the way.  For example, we did the first round of IVF — and it failed.  We had four embryos frozen, so I went down to have the next two implanted on my own (Hubby stayed at work.). I took the Ghan (a cross-country train) so I would have a bit more flexibility with my travel plans.  It was a 22 hour train ride. Both embryos were unfrozen and were viable. The implantation went well and I decided to head home. I settled back and was relaxing when I heard a horrible screeching and felt a lot of jarring. Our train had just hit a bus with school kids.  When we came to a stop, I looked out my window to an absolute horror scene.  I sat right at the window overlooking the mangled bus that had been hit by the Ghan.  I still have the images implanted in my brain… the scene was horrible, sad. I won’t go into too much detail here, but a number of people died and I felt helpless being so close (within 10 feet or so) to people who had lost (or were losing) their lives.  Oh my goodness. Awful, sad stuff. I wasn’t surprised when that second IVF attempt failed.

LD was our third attempt (with the remaining two frozen embryos). The pregnancy went well, though in the end he was breech. We elected for a C-section. He looked a bit funny when he was born (I’m allowed to say that I’m his Mom!)  as his legs had spent a lot of time right up next to his ears! (Maybe that’s why he likes gymnsatics?!!) It took a while for them to naturally straighten out, but luckily he had no hip problems.

Anyway, enough reminiscing! LD had a wonderful birthday. It was low-key as he opted for a sleep-over with two of his close friends.  He’s been into dragons lately, so I made this birthday cake! It has fruit roll-ups for the wings and tongue, chocolate mints and licorice.  You can make your own dragon birthday cake by visiting the wikihow website-How to Make a Fire Breathing Dragon Cake.

Here are a few pictures I took along the way… You need two circular cakes. One you cut in half and “glue” together with frosting. The other round cake are for the legs, head and neck.

 

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