Randy Did Well!

I am not going to lie, we were a little nervous on that first needle! We read the directions and filled the syringe. We then went back and forth over whether or not there was a bubble. Then well, does it matter?? Then after redoing it once and promising not to do it again, we were ready! So we just kind of stared at the needle like "what now?" I believe Randy's response was "glad it's not me!"But we did it! Right in the thigh. And I didn't even feel a thing. Until after, and my leg is now crossed between asleep and itchy. So everyone, give Randy a congrats! I know his first time to stick a needle in his wife had to have been hard - he's a good husband!

Let the Prayers Begin!

Good news folks - the cyst is gone and we start IVF today.  I was actually very surprised because I still felt some slight pain, so I assumed it would still be there.  I was actually setting myself up for waiting another week, just to not get my hopes up!  I have found I much rather prefer expecting the worse, then getting excited when it's good news.  Not being hopeful just to be let down once more.  While I prefer this method, I know Randy doesn't because it causes a lot of unnecessary worry on my end - causing extra consoling on his end!  So Lupron will start this afternoon, and we'll continue those injections for just over a week I believe.  Now I can really start writing and keeping our blog up to date.

Now let's let the injections and prayers begin!...

No Needles Today

Bad news...  We have to postpone it for a week, possibly two.  I have a cyst on my left ovary, so that prevents me from starting the stimulation medication.  Stimulating with a cyst could cause it to rupture and damage your ovary.  They weren't worried, apparently it happens (and apparently has been happening to all their patients today.)  So let's just pray that it goes away enough this week to start next Friday!  I go back Friday to check on it - and it usually doesn't take more than 2 weeks go away. 

So now I just have ANOTHER week to terrify myself once again.  Think happy thoughts...

The More You Plan...

In the world we live in, we all want to make plans for our lives.  We want to plan our careers, our children, our future.  But as a prime example, we have learned the hard way that "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry".  But it is in that "awry" where God is.  Our plans, as miniscule and self serving as they really are, rarely combine with God's plan for our lives.  And every now and then we experience an awry moment that works out better than any person could plan.  This is one of those moments.
For just at a year now, my mom found out her Cargill plant in Decatur was closing.  This was a double blow because she had only been back around 4 months.  She left a different job willingly because of its high stress environment to return to Cargill.  Then with the economy crash in October 2008, Cargill decided to once again close Decatur, just as she was re-settling into her previous role.  So knowing that she could move with the company was a plus, but her and my dad didn't want to leave Decatur. 
Then a joint venture with a company in Louisiana (LSR) looked like a possibility, and she tried to get that job.  It would have put her right next door to her favorite daughter!  But with lending tight, the deal didn't move soon enough, so she ended up taking a role in Memphis in August/September.  She has been living in Memphis each week, trying to sell her house, and find one in Memphis for a few months.  She should have been in Memphis by the beginning of November.  Anything and everything that could have "gone awry" has.  From appraisals being off, to multiple offers falling through, they had yet to have an offer accepted, and are 2 months behind the original schedule.  On November 19, LSR finally closed and will begin construction immediately.  She was called back and asked if she was still interested.  So long story short, she is house hunting today in Prairieville, LA and is moving here with us! 
With all the effort in trying to keep a good job during this economy, and trying unsuccessfully to move down here, it fell into place when we least expected it.  My parents will now be moving in down here when I will be undergoing IVF.  If successful, we will now have family and grandparents when our baby (or maybe 'ies could be a reason for the extra help!) comes in the fall of next year.  With the hard year it has been for our family, both Randy and I and my parents, 2010 should start out wonderfully.
We planned for a pregnancy a year and half ago, with no success.  We are having to go to the extreme fertility end in order to achieve this with January 2010 as the earliest date.  My mom switched to a hopefully happier job and the plant closed, leaving her jobless in Decatur.  After a year of planning with Cargill, she is now moving to Louisiana January 2010.  When our 2008-2009 planning seemed so far off track, so far awry and heartbroken, we sometimes forgot that Christ is in control.  His plan for us, seemingly to converge our tracks in January 2010, is always so much more than we can imagine that His glory can shine through. 
Faith is hard when life is crushing the breath out of you as your hopes and dreams lay shattered at your feet.  But when His plan for our lives reveals itself, it takes your breath away.

It Has Begun!

I called FINO today, and I start my BC prior Tuesday to treatment! I
am tentatively scheduled to go for our scheduling appointment on Jan
8. That is where we will get our schedules, directions, and laying out
our specific gameplan. So around mid January we start our first, and
hopefully last, IVF cycle!

Wow, Time Flies

For infertility to seem to take so long to reach the goal (a baby of course) it sure can change quickly on the journey! We spoke to our previous doctor (I know! I haven't updated in a while!) about what our options were. We discussed IVF, which we did not want to do. He discussed the process, and how natural selection works within women. He discussed Louisiana laws, where every embryo is treated as a life. And how every viable embryo would be used or frozen. By viable, it has to divide past a certain day. If it doesn't divide past that day, it would not have taken naturally without IVF. (I am trying to remember everything, it's been about 2 months!) One thing I didn't know, that even at my age now, with prime fertility, only 1 in 3 eggs are genetically viable for producing a baby. It is God's way of natural selection, keeping with the 20% of getting pregnant each month. OK, so long story short, my moral concerns were alleviated.

So what changed? I was still lost between decisions, with my heart broken. I wanted a clear cut answer, and we didn't seem to have one. One day, toward the end of September, I had one. And it hit me like a rock, eliminating all other options. I was on facebook one afternoon right before leaving work (not on my work computer! on my phone...) and I had a friend post pictures of her recent birth. Maggie McKelvey (I graduated from High School with her) had given birth mid-September and she put up the normal photos - the before at the hospital, the first photos of the baby, the pictures of her and her husband holding their blessing. And of course, her looking completely worn out from being in labor, but glowing with hapiness at holding their child.  And yes, of course, I lost it. I wanted that. I wanted to go into labor one day with our child. I wanted to look exhausted and glowing at the same time. I wanted to have our child, Randy's child, more than life itself. Seeing their joy as new parents seemed to have caused a realization.  We couldn't adopt, or use a donor. IVF was suddenly my only option. And for some reason, it was so clear at that point. If we were standing in a room full of doors, not knowing which to take, God opened one for us and let the light shine in, while locking the others. It felt wonderful.

So then what? Our current doctor at A Woman's Center for Reproductive Medicine was going to be around 15K for IVF because they didn't take my insurance (their lab didn't, it wasn't recognized by Aetna?). And I am in the top 1% of having inferitility coverage. So we looked into the Feritlity Institute of New Orleans. It is actually 4-5 times the size of the previous, we just had no reason to change at first. Well we visited on October 2nd, and THEY TAKE MY INSURANCE! So, long story short, it is only around 5k for us and we start in January! We wanted to wait until then just to save a little more, but also to use my Flexible Spending Account. So, we are here, we start IVF in January! I'll give more details on chances and all later, I just had to update everyone on our journey!

It's Been a While...

Apparently my last writing post was over a month ago. After the failure of the first IUI, I was so crushed I just couldn't make myself be witty. And if I had written, I might have made every reader want to break their own arm just to make them feel better.



Here is an update - We had our second IUI last Friday (8/21) and will know by September 4th whether or not it is successful. The good news for this cycle, I had 2 full size follicles. The bad news, our count was below 1 million, and they like 10million or more for successful IUI's. At this point, we decided to ask the question that we didn't want to ask. What is next?



As far as what our issues are, the next step would be IVF w/ICSI. I am responding well to the clomid, so they won't want to up me to injectables. And we will not do IVF. We don't even want to risk the possibility of producing more embryos than necessary that would be discarded or used for research. And with the cost at 20,000 roughly with the chance of success around 40-50 percent, we don't want to risk that kind of money. We would rather spend a little more and do adoption and be guaranteed a child!



So, unfortunately, we are already here. If this IUI does not work, we have one more shot at having our own. If that doesn't work we'll have to move on to a few other options. Two of which are embryo adoption and outright adoption. I don't know a lot about embryo adoption, but it sounds promising. It is a lot more affordable that IVF, but more expensive that IUIs. But you adopt an embryo from another IVF cycle and actually give birth to your own adopted child. It's a very neat concept.



I hate being at this point though. I hate being so close to the end of having our own child. I hate being only 2 months away from knowing they'll never have his eyes and my mouth. I know it's just another step in this grieving process, but we keep grieving more and more new losses, our limit has to be close.