Question to the community: flu shots revisited

I never got the flu shots this fall. Somehow I have made it to mid-March and there are days when I question what I could possibly have been thinking, skipping it for this long. Now that I'm nestled into the second tri, I am not as worried about the effects of the flu shot on my pregnancy and have considered getting it. In other words - so what if I feel crappy for a day or run a short fever, the neural tube closed long ago. Plus, if there were any serious widespread problems associated with the H1N1 vax's effects on recipients, it probably would have come out by now. But it's mid-March. In California. The sun is shining, etc. I checked out the graphs on the Cal gov website and hospitalizations/deaths due to H1N1 have been on the decline since mid-November in this state and have been zero or close to it for the past few weeks.

I have pretty much decided that the seasonal flu shot is unnecessary at this point. Most of the flu around here has been H1N1, DH got the seasonal shot, and it's likely that the seasonal flu has mutated by now anyway.

I don't want to put unnecessary toxins in my body, but I do still feel like I'm still walking around on eggshells and it would be nice not to feel that way. Also, I agree with the camp that says getting the H1N1 flu while pregnant has the potential to be far worse than anything the vax could do. I keep hearing alarmist reports that H1N1 might be with us through to the summer, there could be another peak, etc. etc. I don't necessarily believe these things but if I'm no longer worried about the jab itself, wouldn't it be better to be safe than sorry?

Question is, is there any point at this point?

Question to the community: Flu Shot during TTC

UPDATED at the bottom

Uh-oh. I've done it. As I approach reentry and get less and less worried about recurrence of cancer and MTX remnants, I've found something else to worry about.

Until this week I felt like this topic was kind of cliche, or at least something that was more hype than anything else. I didn't worry about it. This apathy was likely born of my (fortunately) uneventful history with the flu. I've never gotten the flu shot and have only had the flu once. It was a pain in the ass (I could barely move and had DH take me to the emergency room 'cause the whole experience kind of freaked me out) but was over in 24 hours. My temp spiked for only one day.

So what happened in the last couple weeks to turn this into a topic of obsession? Well, partly it's the media getting to me (maybe there's really something to this vaccination business), partly twoweekwaiting's stories reminded me of how very easy it is for an unfortunate situation to happen you you - relatives coming down with the flu, being invited to peoples' houses who you know are or have recently been sick. This kind of thing happens all the time. Not to mention traveling during the holidays. We're already planning a trip over Thanksgiving. Also, that one time I had the flu was last year, right after my D&C...when my HCG was still elevated above 1000... It's true what they say about pregnant women's immune systems. And it's true that the potential damage from a bout of the flu (or the swine flu) is probably vast and sometimes grave to the mother or baby or both. And this all scares me. A lot.

But enough to get a vaccine? At first I thought this would be the perfect time to get one. Before conception! Why not, right? But then I asked Dr. Google and in true form, he effectively recommends sitting in a sterilized room in my house and never coming out as the safest course of action. What he really said was things like: "don't get vaccinated within 4 weeks of getting pregnant," and I really don't want to wait another month. Then he said "don't get vaccinated in your first trimester." Well, if its not safe in your first tri, why would I want to get it in my second tri? He said "even if you get the vaccine, don't get too comfortable 'cause you can still get the flu." And, perhaps most eerily, he pointed out that "there's still mercury in the mercury-free injections so even if you get the pregnancy-safe version, you're not so safe." This is probably the reason for the whole 4-week washout period.

If I had it to do over, I'd probably get vaccinated a month ago. But now it's potentially 2 weeks until conception. And, god willing, I'll only ever have two weeks notice from the discovery of not being pregnant from a given cycle and the chance to be pg again. In other words, I won't have a guaranteed 4 week window of not being pg in the foreseeable future, if all goes as planned.

So now what? Get the vaccine tomorrow? Two weeks before possible conception? Wait until I'm in my second tri (should i ever be so lucky)? Make DH get the vaccine (this will be hard to do, he's convinced the whole thing is a gimmick). Don't get it at all? Use the old washing of hands and staying away from crowds and sick people trick? This last one sounds practically impossible. I was at the dog park yesterday and this little girl comes up to me and asked if she could use my "chuck-it" to throw tennis balls for my dogs. I had noticed her coughing once earlier, it sounded like a cold. What was I going to say, ...no? Her parents were right there and probably regulars at the dog park. I would rather do a thousand hand washings and 200 hail mary's than deny that little girl in that moment. Plus, even if I was religious about precautions, none of it matters unless DH either gets the shot or is just as religious as I am.

Also, I should mention that one time I got the flu was this past January. DH got it too. So is it possible we could still be inoculated from that?

I think my plan for now is to not get the shot, but if I get pg, after I get pg, I will make DH get it. Is this crazy? Should I just stop by Safeway tomorrow and get it over with?

UPDATE: So I had a chat with DH 'cause this whole thing was really bothering me. I pointed out the reasons I was concerned about the flu and then the reasons I was concerned about the flu shot. And told him I had a favor to ask - namely that he get the shot. And then I braced myself. He was not happy about it. At. All. And he let me know.

DH: I don't want to get a flu shot.

Me: Hon, I know. I know you don't, and I would do it myself if it weren't discouraged at this point. Just please do it for me, it's important to me, I know it might not work, but on the chance that it does...

DH: I hate doctors. This is the biggest gimmick in the world.

Me: [Getting impatient - I mean really, shouldn't the first thing out of his mouth have been "Sure honey, don't worry, I'll do whatever will help, and whatever I can do to relieve any of the stress you're dealing with over this whole situation. This is really not much to ask."] I don't give a sh-- that you don't like doctors, you can do this one thing for me after all the hell I've been through over the past year. I can't even count how many times I've been to the doctor and how many needles I've been stuck with. And you don't even have to go to the doctor. You can do this at $afeway!

Then I mentioned that if we didn't get pg before flu season was over he wouldn't have to get it anyway. And he wanted to play it by ear. And I told him all I wanted to hear was that he would do this one thing for me when and if I needed him to. He was quiet for a while and said that his work has a program for the shots every year and that he'd look into it. THANK YOU GOD for this one miracle.

I feel like I pick my battles pretty carefully and for him to react this way was pretty much apalling. It's not that I never ask him to do things, I do, and I don't want to be a nag. But I rarely ask him to do anything that requires him to go out of his way at all. God, what if I had asked him to do something really scary, like a blood test...or an SA. Can you imagine?

Questions to the Community: Pre$eed

I didn't want to ask these questions so early because I don't want to jinx things. But I don't believe in jinxes and from a practical standpoint, if I'm going to order Pre$eed before we try again, I have to do it soon. I can't wait until my beta on the 19th or 20th.

So here it is. I'm thinking of using Pre$eed for our next cycle - whenever that may be. Hopefully in one month. I purchased a couple boxes one year ago for our TTC attempts waaay back then. And just like every testimonial I ever read about the stuff, we were 'successful' on the first cycle we started using it. So I have left over boxes. Just to be clear, this is the kind that comes in the small, individual, one-time use applicators.

Now for the questions:

1. Given that the 'success' we had was qualified by what proved to be unequivocally the biggest disaster of my life, should I be wary of the stuff and not use it again? I posed this particular question a long time ago and never found any resolution: is it possible that Pre$eed made it too easy for us to conceive and gave a mutated sperm (or two) a chance to get to the egg causing a potentially cancerous condition when, had I let nature take its course, the mutated molar sperm never would've had a chance? Maybe the Gauntlet of the CM is some sort of screening method - good strong sperm can get through, weak mutant sperm, not so much - and Pre$eed is like some perverse mutant-sperm-welfare coming through and mucking things up. Is Pre$eed to blame on some level for what I've been through? I know this is far fetched...but you see my logic, right? On the other hand, the goal is to get pregnant! There are plenty of artificial intrusions into the natural processes of our biology that we all subject ourselves to in not only in fertility struggles but in our experiences with the medical field more generally. And often with unqualified, life-altering success. So what's the harm?

2. Assuming that we do use Pre$eed, I am a little wary of the fact that I bought my current batch one whole year ago. The expiration date appears to be September 2010, so by the looks of it I'm safe. But really? 2010? It's already a year old (and as an aside more related to my first question: what kind of preservatives are they putting in that stuff?). So the question is, would you buy a new batch? Or just go with the old batch that still appears to have a good 11 months of use left? It's pricey stuff, for lube, but it's not that pricey in the grand scheme of fertility "treatments." This is one area of my life where it's worth it to me to spend a little extra.