READY!!

Today brought great news. I’m ready for my trigger shot tonight and have my eggs retrieved on Saturday morning. I’m over the moon excited right now. I’ve had a lot of great energy come over me today and I hope it lasts. I have acupuncture appt scheduled later this afternoon too so that will help.

Tuesday, 11/13, is the BIGGER day. That’s when they will transfer 2 embryos!! I will be considered PUPO (Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise). 2 weeks after transfer date I will have a blood test to confirm pregnancy. I really have nothing else to say as I’m all smiles :-)

Stim day 11

When the doc says every month/cycle is different, they aren't joking. I never thought in a million years that with this much of injectible medication, that I would be still stimming on day 11 with how fast and good I respond to meds in the past. I was thinking egg retrieval (ER) would be like right now. But no, my last appt yesterday showed my 27 follicles are growing, but they are just taking their time.

I'm now up to taking 3 shots a day. 1 in the morning that started Sunday to help suppress the LH hormone that when it increases it makes you ovulate. But we don't want me to ovulate. So I take this injection to suppress that hormone. The other 2 injections I have been taking since day 1 of stims at night. Both of these are for follicle growth. I have a great number of follicles, just slow at responding. There are women on my message board that started stims after me that are already ready for their ER. However, I am on a lower dose of meds than most because I have a higher AMH level. AMH means Anti-Mullerian Hormone. Basically this means my egg quality is great and I have alot of eggs left. This hormone decreases as we get older where we start having poor quality eggs and not alot of them. That's why woman over the age of 35 start having a harder time getting pregnant. This is the "clock ticking" phrase we hear most woman in their 30s say ;-) You learn something new everyday, right?

Not a whole lot more to update. I go back in tomorrow for another scan. I have a feeling that after tomorrow I will be going back everyday instead of every other day like I have been. I am hoping ER will be the end of the this week (possibly weekend).

Poem of truth

I ran across this poem when somone posted it on a message board I belong to. It speaks volumes to me. It's everything that I have ever felt and thought throughout this 3 year long struggle.

I have longed and waited
I have cried and prayed.
I have endured and planned over and over again.
Like most things in life, the people who truly have appreciation are those who have struggled to attain their dreams.
I will notice everything about my child.
I will take time to watch my child sleep, explore and discover.
I will marvel at this miracle every day for the rest of my life.
I will be happy when I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of my child, knowing that I can comfort, hold and feed him and that I am not waking to take another temperature, pop another pill, take another shot or cry tears of a broken dream.
My dream will be crying for me.
I count myself lucky in this sense that God has given me this insight, this special vision with which I will look upon my child that my friends will not see.
Whether I parent a child I actually give birth to or a child that God leads me to, I will not be careless with my love.
I will be a better mother for all that I have endured.
I am a better wife, a better aunt, a better daughter, neighbor, friend and sister because I have known pain.
I know disillusionment as I have been betrayed by my own body.
I have been tried by fire and hell many never face, yet given time, I stood tall.
I have prevailed. I have succeeded. I have won.
So now, when others hurt around me, I do not run from their pain in order to save myself discomfort.
I see it, mourn it, and join them in theirs. I listen. And even though I cannot make it better, I can make it less lonely.
I have learned the immense power of another hand holding tight to mine, of other eyes that moisten as they learn to accept the harsh truth and when life is beyond hard.
I have learned a compassion that only comes with walking in those shoes.
I have learned to appreciate life. Yes, I will be a wonderful mother!
~Author Unknown

I'm not alone..

 I knew some people in the past that have had to go through fertility treatments. I don’t know why right now is any different, but it seems as though it has really hit me just how many people I know that are going through this crap and no one is alone in the struggle. Whether it’s in the earlier stages of infertility or their last shot being IVF. I belong to a few different message boards online to talk about and give/get support and advice for what we are enduring. Each and everyone’s story is special and heartbreaking. Whether it’s their journey for their first or their third baby. No matter the circumstances, the pain is the same. I feel lucky that, if I have to go through this, I’m going through it in this day in age. Where I can talk and relate to a woman 6 states away online. The day in age where IVF is a very successful option. Hard to believe that the first “test tube baby” is only 3 years older than me, born in July 1978. The technology is still quite new and has come a long way since then. Some may not agree with the technology and think that we are messing with and mixing Gods will and science. I feel God provided us with the ability to do these things, so why not? Regardless, if IVF works for us, I don’t know one single person who wouldn’t be happy for us due to how the baby was conceived. This seems to be the only way that John is going to experience having a biological child of his own. I can’t wait til the day he gets to hold one of his own.

Stims are going well. Tonight will be day 4 of meds. I went in this morning for u/s and b/w. All is well. They want to keep me on the same dosage and see me Thursday morning. I had a headache all weekend since starting the meds with Monday being the worst. Today I’m much better, but now I’m starting to feel bloated. I have increased my water intake, more so Gatorade and increased my protein. Gatorade and Protein will help prevent OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome). If I get OHSS, they will have to cancel the cycle as it can be dangerous. So crossing my fingers that I am doing all things right to help prevent this from happening. Lord knows I can’t take another setback. Keep the prayers coming!

Acupuncture and Chiropratic care

Not sure I mentioned it, but I'm doing acupuncture in hopes it helps with our IVF. It has been combined with IVF alot. They say it could be the relaxation, de-stressing and/or promote better blood flow to help an embryo stick and implant. Everyone I know personally who have done IVF and acupuncture together -  it worked! With the amount of money we are investing...er...gambling to create life, might as well go all out and make sure we give it the best shot we got.

I have gone once a week for about a month now. This week I will start goin twice a week for extra relaxtion and de-stressing. The place I go you pay on a sliding scale. You pay anywhere between $20-$40 per session. Whatever you can afford. For acupuncture, that is one helluva deal.

I really enjoy acupuncture. I'm in a giant room with multiple chairs. I have been in there alone the whole time or I have been in there with 5 other people. Depends on the day and time I go. It's called community acupunture. Having a session in a room with others is supposed to have a sense of collective healing energy. Somedays I can understand it, other days not so much. The not so much days come with snorers. What an annoyance while you're trying to relax. So the last 2 sessions I have brought my ipod which proved exactly what I needed. I have been so relaxed and really enjoying my down time.

I have been going to a chiropractor for a couple months now due to some back pain that I think was associated with my car accident. Found out that my neck is the bigger issue. I do not have a curve to my neck like most people do. Which creates alot of pressure.  I really enjoy going and actually take Morgan with me now to get adjusted now that she is in gymnastics. Apparently the chiropractors see alot of kids and alot of gymnasts. Rather her be in this sport well adjusted than to see her seriously injure herself.

While I was there for my consulatation, they mentioned that they also help with infertility. How they explained it is chiro care is more about the nervous system rather than the skeletal system. When you need adjustment, its usually because the bones are pinching nerves, hence the pain. Nerves is what sends signals to and from the brain. If the nerve is blocked, so are the messages it's trying to send. Chiro care is used to treat all sorts of conditions. Even though I'm not going for infertility reasons, I don't see how this could hurt anything. Only improve my health and well being. My plan is to continue through out pregnancy as that clearly does a number on your body.

I have an RE appt tomorrow morning. Will update but looking forward to start stims on Saturday. Only 4 more days away!

We're getting close but not without hurdles

It's been a month since I have updated and I'm not happy about that. I really want to document every step of the way. So this may be long.

Thursday, October 4th, I had a test called a Saline Infusion Sonogram (SIS) and a trial transfer. I had my doctor, a student, a doc who runs an IVF clinic in India who was visiting and learning how IVFs are done in the US and a nurse. It was a crowded room, with a warm spot light on my goods with 4 sets of eyes on the prize. AWKWARD! And to top it all off, everything was done twice so that the doc could show the student what to do and then the student would give it a whirl.

The trial transfer is where they insert a catheter into my uterus to see where they would transfer our future embryos. That went well. The SIS didn't go as planned. The SIS is where they insert fluid into your uterus and do an ultra sound to look for uterine abnormalities that could make it difficult for an embryo to stick. Well, they found something. Polyps.  I was speechless. I had no symptoms of having anything wrong. I thought I would walk in and walk out passing all tests like it was just something I had to do to cross off the list (literally). Doc told me that he wants to get me into surgery right away to get them removed. Like the next day! Everything happened so fast, I left there feeling sick to my stomach. I called John and cried. I felt if it's not one thing, it's another to prevent us from moving forward. 

Fast forward to the next day Friday, Oct 5th I was to arrive at about 11:00 for a 1:00 surgery....H.U.N.G.R.Y. I hadn't eaten or drank anything since about 9 the night before. They prepped me, knocked me out and the next thing I know, I'm waking up in recovery. Doc told John that they removed 2 polyps. They cut me a little with the camera so they had to give me a stitch. Not exactly where though. I had some bleeding for several days and was crampy on and off but was doing pretty well by Sunday night.

The week prior, John had seen his Urologist to provide a sample for an updated SA. We got the results right around the same time I had surgery. That was another blow. The results showed that there were NO moving sperm. NONE! ZERO! ZILCH! WTF?!  How can this be? He had surgery last December to repair what they believe was the problem only to watch his SAs decrease every month. The Urologist told him to stop Clomid all together. He had been taken Clomid for 2 years to help increase his testosterone levels which in turn would help improve the quality of his sperm. Well they think it's burning him out.

We had an appt with our IVF doc Tuesday after my surgery to sign consent forms for the IVF. We took his SA results with us to see if the doc feels he can still do IVF with his sperm. Doc said that this was a problem, but wanted for him to provide a sample at his clinic so that he can use his own lab to determine whats useable for IVF or not. A week later, John was able to provide a sample and the doc said that although it was very low, there is enough to proceed with IVF. That was the best news ever! I immediately called the nurse there to ask the next steps. She told me to continue taking the birth control and take my last pill on the 23rd (tomorrow) and come in the morning on the 24th to get checked out to make sure everything is good to go with my system and to learn how to administer some of the meds. I would then start meds on Saturday the 27th. I was so excited to have actual dates. It made me feel like this was really happening. A plan...that's what I had been waiting for.

I will be taking meds for about 7-10 days depending on how well I respond to the meds. So I am guessing the first full week of November is when they will retrieve the eggs.

Consent signing was very interesting. I think I signed my name more than I signed for our mortgage. Basically we had to go over all case scenarios. Things such as, if we have frozen embryos and one of us dies, what does the living spouse have permission to do with them. Or in case of a divorce, what do we want to do with the embryos. If we have eggs that are too immature or too defected to use what do we want to do with them. If we don't pay on the frozen embryo storage, what does the facility have permission to do with them.  Mainly the options were to either discard or let them use them for training. If there were any relative studies going on we could have opted for that but there were none. We chose to use for training in most scenarios except if the embryos are at the storage facility and we both die we had the option to donate our embryos to other couples and I honestly cannot bring myself to allow that so we chose to discard them. I can't imagine little products of John and I running around this earth that we don't know or our family don't know.

Just celebrated my 31st birthday yesterday. All I could think of was I was 27 years old when we first started trying to get pregnant. Just one month shy of being 28. Here I am 31 and still struggling. Crazy to think where these 3 years have taken us. I hope to have a baby before I'm 32. I would be the happiest girl in the world! As always, we will take all the love, support, thoughts and prayers we can get. We love you all and really appreciate you all allowing us to share our story so openly.

Moving onto IVF

Hard to believe that my last post was shortly after my accident in June without an update on my final cycle for the study. Well, I think needless to say, the final cycle didn’t work either. I can’t remember stats but I do remember feeling like I couldn’t wait for all this to be over so I could go on a much needed vacation to Florida. I started July 5^th or 6^th and left for vacation on July 9^th. So I was all happy to be on vacation period free and free to drink any consumption of alcohol I wanted. No worries, I did not drink myself silly. Not even close. But a good time was had by all. Disney World, Sea World, swimming with dolphins, zip lining over alligators, watching Morgan swim in the ocean. It was all just so wonderful!

We came back and did not focus on getting pregnant. It was so nice not having to worry about appts, ultrasounds, bloodwork and repeat. We certainly needed a break. That study made me not want to go near another IUI procedure ever again. I was tired of the disappointment with the very little increase of odds. It might as well have been the equivalent of us trying naturally with poor sperm. Just ain’t happening.

We do have some news. Being that this month marks 3 years of trying to get pregnant, we have decided to move forward with IVF. The highest form of reproductive technology out there and the best odds of getting pregnant. I know quite of few people who have done IVF and it worked the first time. John and I had a consultation with Dr. Singh at the same clinic as the study. They have great success rates, the staff are wonderful and they participate in the ARC program (Advanced Reproductive Care). They work with clinics across the country to come up with predetermined, discounted pricing on fertility treatments to help make it more affordable. They also provide financing.

We decided to go with the package which includes 1 fresh IVF cycle and 1 FET (frozen embryo transfer). Basically, this means that I take a bunch of meds to produce A LOT of eggs – hopefully close to 20. They aspirate them out of my ovaries and inject sperm into each egg - this procedure is called ICSI. ICSI usually costs extra, at least $1,500 extra. But it’s rolled into this package. Yay! 3 days later they will know how many eggs were actually fertilized and developed into embryos. It’s not typical for all to develop. They will transfer 2 embryos into my uterus (yes, twins can be a high possibility) and then they freeze the remaining embryos for a later time. IF I become pregnant and we end up with a live baby, then the package is done and we do not get to do the FET. But IF I don’t become pregnant or if I miscarry, then the FET is there for me to do the next cycle at no additional cost. Ultimately, the goal is to have a live baby, obviously! And this gives us a greater chance at that with 2 cycles being offered.

We are financing about $9,800 for the procedure, monitoring (which includes office visits, bloodwork and ultrasounds) and ICSI. Then the meds on top of that is an additional $2,600 which we are putting on a new credit card that we opened with 0% interest for 12 months. Total out of pocket is just over $12K. Lucky for us, I have some left over meds from my injectable cycle I did last October. The leftover meds are worth about $1,800. The meds expire in February so that was another reason why we wanted to start right away so we don’t piss away that much money. Seems dumb. I did look into switching insurances to see if my insurance would cover any fertility treatments. Mine would provide up to $5K in meds (lifetime) but it would cost us an additional $250/mo for the insurance than what we are paying now. So in the end it really wasn’t worth it to us. Plus, if we waited til the beginning of next year, we would have either a Nov/Dec baby and I really didn’t want to have a baby around the holidays.

Where are we at right now with this cycle? Well, I’m just waiting for my period to start. Should have been today. So hopefully soon. As soon as I start, I call the nurse and I will come in around day 3 to have some bloodwork and ultrasound and get prescribed birth control pills. Birth control, you ask? I know, sounds completely in the wrong direction of what we are trying to accomplish. Birth control is given prior to IVF cycle to allow your ovaries to rest before running a marathon when I start injecting meds. I will be on birth control for 2-4 weeks. Then I start “stimming”. Stimming = stimulation of your ovaries with meds. Depending on how well my body responds to the meds depends on how long I will stim. Some people respond great and stim for 7 days and others may have to stim for 14 days. Once your’re ready, I will be put under for the procedure where they go in and take out the eggs. At this time, John provides a sample. As soon as they have both eggs and sperm, they get to work right away fertilizing them. We will get a report the next day to see how they are doing and then the following day. Some IVF protocols transfer embryos on day 3 or day 5. I believe this clinic does it on day 3. They will grade the eggs A,B,C. A being the best, they will implant the very best 2. Then they do a blood test 2 weeks later. If all goes as well as I think it will, I will know if I’m pregnant by Thanksgiving. And will have a due date in July/August. Close to Morgan’s bday!

I can’t believe this is really happening. We need all the thoughts, prayers and support we can get. I will try to be very diligent with updating this blog as I want as much of this process documented as possible.