Mala Nota

First off big warm happy sticky thoughts to Eat Poop Love for her blastocystic success.

OK. This is the deal, folks....

The malaria convo brought up a TON of "good point!"s and "never-thought-of-that!"s for me. Thank you all who commented on and off this blog. I did my research and brought my ass to the professionals and Columbian's nurse-practitioner-led travel clinic (they rock, btw, for local travellers). I discussed very candidly the competing interests and problems that Speedy & I are facing:

I desperately want to go to Ghana with my mama. She's 67 and my thought is, how many more opportunities are we going to have like this, especially since we're hoping to have a baby soon? I mean, babies are great and all but they do kind of tie you down a bit until they're a bit older. And while my mom's in great health now, a few years can bring a lot of changes. So I am looking at this as a not-to-be-missed opportunity to bond with my mother doing what she loves to do most.

On the other hand, Speedy and I are equally desperate to begin the ttc process after going through nearly a year of appointments and surgeries and preparation. I am not getting any younger and neither is Speedy. We don't want to have to be attending Speedytot's high-school graduation with our walkers!

So when the malaria meds issue came up we both freaked out a little that the whole process was going on hold AGAIN.

And it is... for 3 more months.

In brief, I found out that I can take Malarone, which is highly effective and happens to have a short half-life (21 hours). I will have to take it for a week after returning and then wait another week before starting the ttc process... in late November/December depending on my cycle.

Puffer brought up the 3 months wait-period which I also broached with the NP at Columbia. The short story: Of U.S. 600,000 travellers to Africa each year, 600 are diagnosed with malaria. This is why they "suggest" the 3-month waiting period. To make absolutely, positively sure that you don't come up with malaria. Only there is no way to know that, 3 months or not, because malaria can hide in your liver for years if it wants to.

The CDC do not keep track of who is diagnosed AFTER returning to the U.S. or under what circumstances (whether they had taken prophylaxis, how long they had been in Africa, under what conditions) But AT WORST the chances of that happening are 1 in 1,000.

As we all know, numbers like this can drive you crazy, but my own risk is probably a lot lower than even 1/1,000, given that I am going for only 2 weeks and will be taking an effective anti-malarial.

So, I feel pretty confident with Speedy's & my decision to take precautions against malaria, wait until the Malarone is out of my system, and start this ttc once and for all.

I *am* bummed that we won't be ready to start this month as we had anticipated for so long, but my numbers are good and my body is healthy and if I have learned anything about this process from my year+ of reading the blogs, it's that there is very little predicting how quickly & easily the process will go despite all the abundance of statistics and information out there. Every case is unique and individual. I feel like Speedy and I are making the best choice we can for us and our future family.