And the results are in…….

"Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming about the things that we could be

But baby, I been, I been prayin' hard

Said no more counting dollars

We'll be counting stars

Yeah, we'll be counting stars" - One Republic

The last few weeks have been crazy busy at work and with life in general. As you know from my previous post, we did the implantation on December 10th and have been waiting and praying for good news. During the wait, I kept my mind busy at work with meetings and piles of paperwork and stayed busy at home cleaning house in preparation for family to arrive for Christmas. Time flew for me during this two-week-wait compared to the other ones. Maybe because I am detached from it all and our Surrogate is in another state, I'm not sure, but even though I found myself still thinking about it every day, I did not want to bother her so I only checked in every three days. Each time, she reported no changes, so that could be good news or not good news, so we continued to pray and wait until the official blood test. This time, since it wasn't me we were waiting to see about being pregnant, I had no control, I could not sneak a home pregnancy test, did not compulsively look up early pregnancy symptoms and on the day of the test, while I was anxious to hear, I did not convince myself if was negative and give myself a pity party before ever hearing the results. Yes, this wait time was much easier for me! 

On the day of the blood test, I was at work and needed to finish up a few last minute files before heading out on winter break but could not bring myself to get any of it done. The night before, I had had a dream that our Surrogate called and I missed the phone call so she left a message that we were pregnant and every time I tried to call her back, we missed the connection. So, on that day, I was a wreck, was the dream going to be a reality? Was it a sign? Was it just a dream and nothing more? Were we really pregnant? 

Not too long before lunch that day, I received a phone call……...

The song above has been playing through my head over and over again and seems to fit my current feelings. Many people have been praying hard with us so that we could get our miracle baby. We have had people praying all over Texas, Arizona, the east coast and even in Europe!

I am happy to tell you all that our prayers have been answered and our wonderful surrogate is pregnant!!! 

(I can tell you all now because we have told the grandparents to be and the immediate family already.) We decided to wait to tell Dan's parents for Christmas and it was fun to try and think of a cute way to tell them. We decided to FaceTime them to open gifts together. We had them open their gifts and we opened ours and we talked about random things for over an hour and then we told them we found a couple of gifts that they sent out and forgot to open them. Mom didn't notice that the paper was the same as what was on the gifts we sent them and said she couldn't think of what could be in them but she wanted us to go ahead and open them anyway so she could see. There was a baby rattle in one and baby lotion in the other. Both of them seemed confused at first but then got really excited as they realized what we were driving at! They are thrilled to think they will be first time grandparents in August. I decided to put an ornament on the tree for my mom with a note saying "Coming soon….August 2014" for her to see when she arrived on Christmas Eve. I had to tell her to go look at my tree but when she did, she noticed it right away and asked if it meant what she thought it meant and then said "cool" or something like that. It wasn't very exciting as I had thought but later I found out that she already knew but was trying to act surprised. 

Anyway, so now you know that the initial prayers have been answered, that "beautiful" embryo stuck and he or she is growing fast! She had a second blood test to confirm that things were progressing as they should and the numbers were "huge",  according to the physician's assistant when she read them to me. When you first get a beta HCG pregnancy test, you get a number that tells you it is positive and that number is supposed to double about every 48 hours her numbers were more than doubled! This is great news and could mean that it is: a) a very viable pregnancy (woo hoo!), b) the embryo split and there are two (only a 5% chance of this happening but if it did, wouldn't that just be God's sense of humor shinning through!) or c) apparently there is a correlation between higher numbers on the second beta HCG test and the baby being a girl…… (awe!). Whatever the outcome is, we will be thrilled!

We are so happy that this has worked, happy with a side of caution. We have had the happiness of knowing we were pregnant and before the second trimester, that happiness was ripped away, leaving holes in our hearts forever. I would like to believe that nothing could go wrong as things have so far being moving so smoothly but we all know they can and we will continue to pray for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. This is where you all can continue to help, please keep sending up those prayers! 

We are only 5 weeks along right now but I am already planning what I will be doing as soon as I take that last final exam in the first week of August and planning how much time I will take off of work and trying to decide if I am going to try to breast feed or not. I may be getting way ahead of myself but if you know me, you know that I have never been one to slow down or to be unprepared! I can't wait to put little glow in the dark stars on my child's ceiling and lay down on the floor counting the stars with them……or better yet, go on many fun family camping trips and count real stars!

Until next time, much love and appreciation to all of you for your continued prayers and support! Pray for our Surrogate to have an easy, healthy time during this pregnancy, thanks!

"Sticky vibes" and "praying for a BFP"

Well, since my last update, I had that 10th surgery and it went fine. I woke up in pain as usual but only had two incisions which is two less than typical so I am guessing that I didn't have a lot of scar tissue to remove or that it was concentrated only to the one side. Either way, I am almost completely healed and feel fine so that is a plus! I will see the doctor on Thursday for a full report.

A few days after the surgery, we went up to Phoenix to meet our surrogate, friend and family member and her awesome husband at the airport. They had a LONG day of sitting and waiting for their flight to take off at the airport due to several cancellations for bad weather so they were tired to say the least. We travelled to the resort that I had gotten us rather inexpensive rooms in via Hotwire and we were slightly disappointed to find that it was really no better than a Motel 6. The problem with Hotwire is that you do not get to pick the place, just the general area, the price and the star rating of your choice. So, the last time we ended up in a great resort that had a golf course on the premises and a kitchen and laundry facilities in the rooms. These rooms has a mini fridge and beds. At least the beds were comfy. Anyway, the next day we had a few hours to kill before we had the doctor's appointment for the transfer so we explored Butterfly Wonderland as it sounded interesting and was only a few minutes away from the doctor's office. They had advertised thousands of white butterflies for the season but we only saw a few. The place was very large compared to the one we have in Tucson so it was nice to not bump into people every step you took while exploring the various butterflies. My favorite are the blue morpho.

 

One landed on Dan and decided to stay for the duration of our visit, supposedly this is good luck (heres hoping!) Once we exited the exhibit, we were surprised by a stingray pool and we were able to pet them. Each of us had a stingray nibble our fingers……. wonder if that was good luck too? (Fingers crossed!) 

After the stingray play, it was time to head to the doctor to do the transfer and get a look at our embryo. When we arrived the doctor was ready to go so we were asked to come back right away. We were able to see a picture of our embryo when it was taken out of the freezer and another picture about two hours after the thaw process began. The image showed that the embryo was in fact alive and expanding quickly as it should be. Our surrogate was prepared to receive the embryo and just before it was implanted, we got one more image. 

The above image is our "beautiful" (according to the doctor), embryo that was transferred on Tuesday. After the transfer, which went fairly smoothly, our surrogate was instructed to be on bed rest for 24 hours. So, we all headed back to our rooms and laid around and watched movies! After bed rest was up, we had some time to kill before heading back to the airport so the guys went golfing and the ladies headed out shopping! Then we all had dinner and we took them to the airport and said our "goodbyes" and "see you laters" with me trying my best to hold back tears. Tears of happiness, maybe worry and of overwhelming shock that someone is doing this for us out of the kindness of their own heart! What do you even say to that? This whole process is definitely no picnic for her as she has to get injected with needles daily and of course, if it works, she will carry a child for 9 months which, I am told is hard on a woman's body and mind! As I have said before, she is amazing and definitely an angel sent from above to help us out like this and even if it doesn't work out, I have gained a forever friend and that is something special! 

Since then, we have been praying for "sticky vibes" as they say in the infertility forum world so that the embryo latches on and begins to grow into a healthy baby. We should know something in another week so we are also praying and hoping to hear the news of a "BFP" (Big Fat Positive), another infertility world term. Thank you all for your support, thoughts and prayers! Until next time, I hope you all are healthy and happy and enjoy Christmas with your loved ones!

Prayers requested!!

It has been quite a while since my last post this past July! Since then, we finalized all the legal stuff and our surrogate had her first visit to my doctor for his approval. That went smoothly (minus getting pulled over 3 times on the way back from Phoenix for a blown headlight!). She was approved and was given a list of things to do to prepare and she went back home to get started. The whole visit was wonderful and it helped to make me feel a little more at ease but still not completely convinced that something would go wrong, even with all of her positive energy and words.

Nothing has gone wrong since then and we are only a few days away from transfer! She will arrive on Monday afternoon and we will do a final ultrasound to make sure everything is ready and do the transfer Tuesday morning. We will be implanting one of the six embryos and pray it takes. If so, we will have our little miracle in August. I am still so humbled and amazed at the generosity and love she is sharing with us and I can't express enough gratitude towards her……ever. Even if it doesn't work, I will always be grateful and she will always hold a special place in my heart!

Tomorrow I will be having my 10th laproscopic surgery to remove scar tissue from endometriosis. I am really wanting to just have everything ripped out as it has done nothing good for me but as a last stitch effort of hope for the unlikely event that I could carry on my own and there may be embryos left after everything works out with the surrogate, I will keep everything in tact…..just in case.

So, with these two events coming up so quickly, I ask for prayers for an easy surgery, a speedy recovery, an easy transfer and for all the baby vibes you can muster up for this to work! Hugs and love to you all and thanks in advance for the prayers.

One third of the way there!

Last I wrote, there were 14 eggs donated. That turned into 8 fertilized eggs on the day after donation. Then, on day three, I was told I had 7 embryos, one had stopped growing. They said they would call me on day 5 to let me know how many survived that far. Day 5 was yesterday and I received a phone call saying that they froze 4 "beautiful, perfect embryos" and were letting the others grow one more day. They said that they were where they should be but not quite as good as the 4 they had already frozen but that things could change over night and if they had made it to "blast" then they would freeze them too. The phone call I received this morning was to tell me that two of them had continued to grow and they made it to blast and were able to be frozen.

So, as of today, we have 6 "snow babies" just waiting for an oven!

Now, all we have to do is get all the legal stuff out of the way and plan for transfer. The goal is to get everything ready to do transfer for early December so if and when it all works, baby would arrive in August.

We are a third of the way there, however, I am not completely breathing just yet, but at least we have embryos......

Until next time, thanks for the prayers and support.

A few hurdles down, a few more to go....

There is SO much to share since my last post!

Lest's see, as of my last post, I no longer had a surrogate and after that post, I was told my egg donor was no good. So after a short bout of depression, we searched again and decided on another donor and asked the other two ladies who expressed interest in helping. They were both still interested but one is currently pregnant and as it is her first pregnancy, she didn't know what to expect and would let us know after delivery if it is actually something she thought she could do again and for someone else. Completely understandable! She is a great friend for even being willing to do such a thing, not knowing what it really entails.
The second woman has had three children and according to her they were easy pregnancies and she would have no problem doing it again. There were just a couple hurdles to jump through first. She is out of state and she in her early 40's. The doctor wanted her to go through a stress test and a blood test before saying that she was a good candidate. She willingly did both and has been approved! YIPEE! She is an amazing woman who also happens to be a member of my husband's family. I really married into a wonderful family and I am blessed! I hear horror stories from other women who just hate their spouses family and I feel so very lucky to know and love every member of Dan's family!
So, with a new donor and a surrogate, the next step was to get the donor the medication she needed to grow the eggs she would be donating and to contact the lawyer to make a contract between us and the surrogate. The donor started her cycle of medication a couple of weeks ago and today was the egg retrieval.
As you all may remember, the most eggs that were ever retrieved from my cycles were 6 and those resulted in only 2 embryos. We have been hoping and praying for more than that and just enough if that makes sense.
Well, today the donor gave us 14 eggs!!!!! I am amazed and so excited about this. If her eggs fertilize and grow like mine did (worse case scenario), I would expect to have 7 embryos to freeze. If they are way better than mine, we will have more. They will call me tomorrow to let me know how many fertilized. Then they have to grow them for 5 days and let us know how many they will be freezing. Once they are safely grown and frozen, we can finalize the legal stuff and prepare the surrogate for transfer.
We have a couple hurdles more to jump before transfer day and the dreaded two week wait, but we are getting closer!
As always, thank you all for your continued prayers and support!

Happiness and heartache all in the same week

As many of you know, I have been pleading and begging people to become our surrogate, I have even put it out there on Facebook for my "friends" to share and beg their friends. Through all of this, I received interest emails from 4 women! Amazing right? Two of the women live out of state so that would be hard but still doable. The other two women not only lived in the same state as I am in, but they worked with me! What a great opportunity to be able to be that close to the woman that could carry my baby and be a part of everything!

Seeing that I had options, I let the two women who lived out of state know that I had two prospects in state and that I would be looking into using one of them first, since they were closer. So, I told them, "thank you so much and I will keep you in mind if things don't work out". Then I interviewed both of the women where I worked. The first woman has an amazing heart and thinks that I do too and will do anything for me, but, her husband wasn't quite on board and she has some minor complications with her last pregnancy that weren't good for her health. I told her, "thank you so much but that because your husband isn't on board and because I don't want anyone dying trying to help me out, I will be pursuing using the other woman". She was fine with this and we will I am sure continue to be great friends! After interviewing the second woman and having dinner with her and her husband along with Dan, we all felt like she was a good match. They didn't want money, they just wanted to be able to give another couple the amazing gift that they knew they were lucky to have been given. She wanted to be pregnant again without having to raise the child and since he was away in the military when she was pregnant with their boys, he was looking forward to experiencing this with her. We said we would of course pay for any medical expenses related to pregnancy, maternity clothes and gas to get back and fourth to the appointments. Everyone got along great and we agreed to take the next step and she and I scheduled a doctors appointment to see if she was approved.

On Friday, we drove up together and saw the doctor. We spent 2 hours in the car to get there, 2 hours at the doctors office, I spent 250 dollars on the appointment and 2 hours in the car together driving home. I got to know everything about her medical history and was in the room when she had the ultrasound exam. While this was very awkward, I figured, if she was going to be my baby's "oven", I should get used to these types of appointments. The doctor was really excited about her potential to carry and said pending blood work, she was good to go. I was starting to feel excited but cautiously so. I mean we still have to get eggs, make embryos and they still have to implant. (One step at a time)! She and I scheduled the blood work to be this Friday (tomorrow) and she went and filled the prescriptions that he ordered for her and I bought the vitamins. She and I didn't talk much during this week other than text messages here and there to confirm meeting times. Today, I got a text asking to meet tonight to talk. My heart instantly sank and I knew this "talk" wasn't going to be a good one.

After trying several times to get ahold of her with no response, she finally texted me an address and asked me to meet her there. I made it there in less than 10 minutes and when she finally came to the door, I could see that she had been crying. (I wanted to turn around and run)! I didn't though and we sat down and she let me know that she didn't feel like she was getting the support from her family that she thought she would get by doing this and that she didn't think that mentally and emotionally she could actually go through with it. She said she was sorry, that she would pay me back for the appointment and that she wished that there was something she could do to make it right. I just said, it's "fine". (All of my southern friends know what "fine" really means)! I didn't cry (until I made it to my car). She asked that I don't hate her..... I said I don't, (but I know next year at work may be slightly difficult whenever we cross each others paths). I gave her a hug and left. I called my poor sweet husband and gave him the news and broke his heart (again). Then I cried all the way to dinner. Fortunately, I had already made dinner plans with a great woman who made me laugh most of the evening (thank you Molly)! The little wine I had helped too!

Now, I sit here, writing this, trying to figure out what the next step will be. This is how I survive, I keep going and plan for the next step. There has to be something to look forward to, or there is not much point to getting out of bed in the morning. So, I will be contacting the other women again and letting them know that I still have a need, if they are still interested. However, I fear that they will all not be interested because they were just being nice in the first place and maybe they were relieved when I told them I had someone. Part of me also wants to see if maybe, just maybe, my body will hold onto a pregnancy if we used donor eggs. I already have that process started so surrogate or not, we should have embryos in July. BUT, what good are embryos if you have no "oven" to grow them in?!?

As always, thank you for your continued love, prayers and support.

New Journey

What did I do on Mother's Day? Besides throw myself a pity party and cry more than once, I picked myself up and wrote a check for the deposit of donor eggs.

We are about to embark on a new journey people......donor eggs and surrogacy. I have given up on the hope that I will be able to carry a child and I have given up on my own eggs. It has taken a couple of months for me to come to terms with this fact, that our child, if and when he or she gets here, won't actually be my own DNA. I have always said that I could easily adopt and I still believe I could, I mean I fall in love with any child I come in contact with wether they are my nieces or nephews or children I work with. So, why has this decision been so hard? I think maybe because there is not an actual child out there yet. It hasn't even been conceived, there are no embryos yet and no confirmed pregnancy, nothing YET to look forward to. So, it is hard. I keep worrying about the future, when "she" is a teenager and she yells at me that "I can't make her do anything because I am not her real mother". Would I be able to handle that? What if "she" wanted to find her biological mother? Would we even tell the child? Is it even worth worrying over right now? Probably not, but these are the things that go through my head.

The process to get donor eggs is frustrating and expensive but after putting interest into several potential donors, we have one that should work out. She has to go through a series of testing and medical work-ups but after she is approved, we can start the donor cycle, in 1-2 months.

The next process is to find a surrogate. We have actually had a few offers in this area since my last plea on FB. I have talked with the women and we will be talking more with one of them soon. I am so happy that there are angels like these women out there, women who just want to help or who just loved being pregnant so much that they want to be so again, but are done raising their own babies. I am and will be forever grateful to these women.

The third step in the process is to find a lawyer who can represent us and write a "pre-birth order". This has to be done with the laws in this state so that when the baby is born, he or she belongs to us. That is all I can say about that for now.

So, if all goes well with the egg donor and the surrogate is approved, we should have embryos in about 2 months ready for transfer into our surrogate. Then, as with all other attempts, we wait that dreaded two-week-wait to see if it worked.

I will post more as things progress, assuming that they will. As always, thank you all for your support and love.

Holidays are hard

Holidays are hard for many people, especially family holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving. For a couple living with infertility, the traditions you make together as a young couple seem less fun and not as important when you feel you're missing something.

It is now mid May and yet again, we have been through another empty Christmas, New Years Day, Easter Sunday, our 9th wedding anniversary and Mother's Day.

That last one, and the one to come, Father's Day, those may be the hardest for both of us. I mean a whole day of people on Social Media celebrating their bundles of joy, soon to be bundles, toddlers, tweens, teens and adult children, sharing all of the sweet things they received from them along with photographs. I am very happy for everyone's joy, it is just depressing to think that we may never have that joy...

Yet, we survived. After a few pity parties and tears, we survived and will continue to do so. It just doesn't get any easier.

Thank you to my friends who thought of me yesterday and sent their love. It is appreciated.

Well, that's awkward......

Trying to find a person willing to carry a baby for you is like trying to find a needle in a hay stack, seemingly impossible. The more I look, the more I get frustrated and feel like giving up. We will be using donor eggs whenever we find that person so really, I just need an incubator.
One would think that wouldn't be too hard to find, one woman who has already had her children, loves being pregnant, all of her parts are in tact and she is compassionate enough to be willing to do this for us. So far, I have struck out on everyone I have asked or thought about asking.
Since I am one who has to laugh or I will cry, I will share some of those awkward moments here so you can laugh too!

1) I asked my sister in law if she wanted to "be like Phoebe on "Friends" and carry her brother's baby". (To be fair, I didn't really expect her to say yes as she doesn't yet have kids of her own and I don't expect anyone who doesn't have kids of their own yet to be willing to be a surrogate.)

2) I heard from a friend that I hadn't seen in a couple of months that she was pregnant and didn't even know it for the first three and a half months. After she told me this I said "Great, your pregnancies are obviously easy, when your done with this one, would you mind carrying mine too?" (Oh man...)

3) I spoke to another friend who just had her third baby and said something like "since your obviously able to have babies just fine, would you mind being my incubator?" (Fail)

4) I saw a pregnant woman and a man walk out of the bank and they got into separate cars and I thought, that I should have asked if she was a surrogate for him and his wife....... so glad I refrained! She was probably just his sister or his realtor!

5) I spoke to an old friend who was always against having kids of her own and asked her if she would have one for me. Her response was not only no but...... well you can guess. She wasn't going to ruin her body to have kids of her own, why would she do that for me? (Good point)

I have signed up for every surrogate website out there looking for a match and so far no luck. I will keep trying but all of this makes me want to see if maybe, just maybe, if we used donor eggs and my own uterus that the doctors keep saying is "perfect", that it would work.

The cost isn't that much more than doing IVF and by using donor eggs, we would definitely have embryos left if god for bid it didn't work the first time. If it didn't work, we would know for sure that I have implantation issues and just can't carry and we would then have to come up with more money to put the remaining embryos into a surrogate (assuming we found one by then). If it did work, we would know for sure that I just have bad eggs, (but I wouldn't care because I would have a baby in the end).

Follow-up consultation

Today, I made that long, 5 hour drive round trip to visit the fertility doctor again, just to follow-up and get his thoughts and ideas for what our options are for moving forward.

The news was not too great, but there are options. For starters, he wants us to get genetic testing done to rule out "balanced translocation".

"In a balanced translocation, a person usually has all the genetic material necessary for normal growth a piece of a chromosome is merely broken off and attached to another one. However, when that person's cells divide to create egg or sperm cells for reproduction, the egg or sperm cells can end up with extra genetic material or missing genetic material, which could lead to miscarriage depending on which chromosome and genes are affected. In about 4.5% of all couples with recurrent miscarriages, one or both parents has a balanced translocation. Research has shown that couples with balanced translocations are more likely to have miscarriages than couples without balanced translocations. There's some evidence that balanced translocations involving specific chromosomes are more likely to cause miscarriages than others."

That doesn't sound good at all, but if one of us did show up with it, then we would at least know what the nest step would be. If I have the problem, then I could use donor eggs and everything SHOULD be fine. If it was in him, we would have to consider donor sperm. Based on the last three tries and how my body felt, I have a suspicion that the problem is with me.

However, this may not be a problem at all. If that is the case, then we are "back to square one" and we don't know if it is implantation issues with me or just bad eggs.

If implantation issues, I need a gestational surrogate where we can use my eggs (after taking stim drugs for a lot longer than normal protocol) and his sperm to make embryos and put it in a "compassionate surrogate" on day 3, who loves us and cares for us and wants to help us out, from the kindness of their own hearts.......... anyone know anybody like that????? The doctor said that he was sure that I knew 4 women that would do this for me. I am not too sure about that. Well, actually, I do know 4 women who would do this for me, the only problem is they no longer have the required equipment!

If the problem is only bad eggs, then I can just use an egg donor and put the embryos in me, do another immune therapy treatment in another country, plus IVIG (an infusion therapy that costs around 3000) and hope for the best.

I have no idea what donor eggs cost. I do have a lawyer's number that I can consult with who has a lot of experience with writing contracts for surrogates and intending parents here in this state, so that is good if we do need to go down that road and we find that special someone to help.

Needless to say, this is all very overwhelming. I don't even know if we have the finances available to do anything else but I do know that if we don't do anything soon, I will run out of time.

Besides my issues, the state legislature is trying to ban IVF practices all together.
The current bill calls for more regulation of embryos. Supporters of the bill are comparing the destruction of an embryo that has stopped growing and is no longer viable to abortion and therefore should be illegal to "murder" that embryo. They also say that having a baby is a natural beautiful gift from God and basically, "God doesn't want you to have children". The whole thing is a long debated, completely heartbreaking and just awful. I could go on and on about this issue but I won't. If you want to stop the current bill from going into effect, you can visit http://www.resolve.org/get-involved/2013-state-advocacy-efforts.html#AZ and write a letter to congress.

Thanks for reading and goodnight or good morning since it is 1:30am. (I should not have taken that 2 hour nap earlier today.......).

What to do now???

As many of you know, I do better when I have a plan. I am trying to figure out what that plan is right now and we are exploring the alternative options available for having a baby. The first option we have explored is surrogacy and wow.... this is quite stressful. We don't even know where to begin but do know that there are lawyer fees, medical fees and surrogate fees.

From what we can tell so far, surrogacy could cost anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000  dollars, depending on the route you take and the experience of the surrogate and if you go through and agency or go with a private person. It is all so complicated and scary. Arizona state laws for children go with their "birth" parents. That means that if we used a surrogate and her eggs, that if, God forbid, she decided to keep the baby, she would have a pretty good chance of winning her case...... that doesn't make me too excited to go out and try this method.

Adoption for now is still not something we are ready to explore. So, that leaves us feeling like we are back at square one..... (together, alone, without the rest of our family). That means that I don't have a plan and I am not doing better, but I have great ways of seeming like I am OK and will continue to do so, because I have to, because that is what I have always done.

Bitter sweet news

So, on the same exact day that I found out that I was not pregnant and had to come to the realization that I may never be able to do this on my own, may never carry my own child and an egg donor is out because my body would just reject it anyway, on that same day, my sister gave birth to her third child.

I don't mean any offense here to her, but I have not called to congratulate her and I really don't want to. I will of course at some point because she is my sister and I do love her but for now, I am angry that he (my nephew) decided to come on this day, the day of my pure misery. I am sure he is cute and I am sure that I will love him as much as I do my two nieces and my nephew from my brother. I just can't handle it right now. His whole creation was under less than perfect circumstances. I will not tell any more here because that is her story, not mine. I hate that I feel this way but I can't help it and I am sorry.

Life isn't fair, it doesn't make sense and it is what you make of it. So, I gave myself today to grieve. Tomorrow will be better. I will move on, I will be OK, WE will be OK. No one knows what is in our future but God, it is all in his hands now. I am not giving up necessarily but whatever happens will happen and I no longer have any control.

I do have control over my actions and reactions though and for now, I choose to run, literally. The first run will be an all out obstacle course, 5k in March, hopefully with a few girlfriends, to support breast cancer awareness. Then, in April, I have another 5k with a team from school that I help coach and eventually, I plan on working up to a half marathon in December.

That is all for now. Once again, thank you for all your prayers and support.

Oh, and congrats Ashley, I will call eventually, I hope you understand........

The results are in

Well, I went into the lab this morning and had my blood drawn at 6:15 am and went to work. All morning, I have waited with high anxiety for the phone call from the doctors office.

They called at 11:15. The results are negative. I am not pregnant. They don't have any answers. I can go back and consult with him later in the week or next week or whenever I choose. If I choose too.

Right now, I am heartbroken. The hardest part of it all is knowing that once again, I have disappointed my husband.

I don't know what is next, if anything, but for now I will be sad and disappointed until I am ready to move forward.

Thank you for all your support and prayers. Maybe one day it will all work.

The wait is almost over......

I am near the end of the two week wait and I am going a bit crazy to say the least. The symptoms for pregnancy are nearly identical to the same symptoms a woman gets before "aunt flow" comes to visit. I have had nearly every symptom on the list. So, needless to say, this week has been an emotional roller coaster of "Oh, I am feeling this so it definitely worked" or "Oh crap, this is happening, impending doom is near!" It is maddening for sure and there is nothing anyone can do about it but continue to wait.

I could sneak a home pregnancy test but there is emotional drawbacks to that too. There can be false results or it could be accurate (which would be great if it is positive, not so great if it is negative). If the test shows negative, I won't know if it is really negative or a false negative until Monday and why ruin my weekend? If the home test is positive, I could be really happy all weekend only to find out that it was a false positive on Monday and that would certainly be tragic too. So, I will wait and continue to analyze every "symptom" that comes about and pray that it means pregnancy and not impending doom and try to stay busy until Monday.

Unfortunately, I do have to work on Monday and I cannot leave in the middle of the day crying if the results are negative. Fortunately, I have a really great, really supportive work family who I know will either congratulate me and jump for joy or who will cry with me and take me out for drinks at the end of the day. I am very lucky know such wonderful people.

I will sign off for now but first, I want to thank everyone of you who are out there praying and offering encouraging comments. Now, I am off to try and enjoy the weekend I have without the crazy amount of paperwork that awaits me back at work and I will try not to worry and stress too much until Monday.

Bed rest blah..... and a big thank you to the most dedicated hubby ever!

Today is only day four of the bed rest orders and I am going a bit stir crazy! I have read two books and will finish a third today. I have done my homework for the week. I have answered a few work emails and rescheduled meetings. I have slept and slept some more and best of all, I have really enjoyed being pampered by my loving husband.

Needless to say, infertility is hard on a marriage and after as many years as we have been dealing with it, most couples would probably be headed for a divorce. I would like to complain and say I have had it the hardest with 9 surgeries, hundreds of injections, countless lab tests and the overall illness factor, but I have to acknowledge the hardships he has taken on too.

He has also had his blood drawn several times (twice in another country), had to donate his swimmers in numerous doctors offices (which is, I am sure a bit awkward to say the least) for each pregnancy attempt, had to deal with my sudden crying fits over our losses and has had to take care of me for every one of my 9 surgeries. Not to mention, men are heartbroken by miscarriage too. All of this takes its toll but through it all, he still manages to be my rock and doesn't complain one bit about a few days of having to do all the cooking, cleaning and pet care.

The past few days (and anytime I have ever had to be on bed rest or recovering from a surgery), he has planned every meal, cooked it, brought it to me along with anything else I request. He has done laundry, dishes, organized rooms, painted and even cleaned floors. To be fair, these aren't things reserved exclusively for me on a normal basis, no, he does more than his share of housework on other days too but I guess I appreciate it more when all I can do is watch him do it now.

I know this has been hard on him too and I am just so grateful that he manages to keep going, looking ahead, being positive so I don't fall apart.  Every time I have fallen apart, he has been there to make things seem better and I would like to say I have done the same for him. That is how marriage is supposed to work right? Yes, we have had our rough times but through it all, we have each other and that is what matters the most.

So, here is a huge THANK YOU to the best, most dedicated, caring husband a wife could have, I LOVE YOU Dan!

The PUPO stage

PUPO stands for pregnant until proven otherwise and this is the term women use for the long two week wait time period between embryo transfer and pregnancy test day.

Today starts my PUPO stage and for the next two weeks (and hopefully a lot longer than that) I can be happy knowing that I am in fact, pregnant...... with twins! How cool is that?

Since I can't do anything for the next few days, I will catch up on reading, do homework for my class, paperwork for work, watch some movies and play games with friends. Oh, and enjoy being PUPO!

In the past, during this time, I was stressed and worried so much about whether it worked or not. Not this time, in my heart of hearts, I know it did. It had to because we have done everything we were supposed to do and because we have so many people praying for us. So, thank you all for that!

Here is a picture of the twins today. :)

Embryo transfer day!!

Today we drove the two and a half hours to the doctor to see how many embryos we had to transfer. We arrived a bit early and waited patiently until we were called back to go over things with the doctor. She told us that there were two embryos ready to transfer. One was a perfect blastocyst and the other was just about "6 hours behind but still viable". She also said that the other two embryos "probably stopped growing" but that she "will culture them one more day and then check on them and if they have definitely stopped growing, they will be destroyed because they are not viable" but that "stranger things have happened and if they do grow then they will be frozen for possible use later".

With that, we signed papers stating that we were told about the possibility of having twins and were OK with that (At this point lady..... we will take anything!) and I was given a Valium to relax me for the procedure.

We were then taken to our little transfer room where I was told to dress in the usual hospital attire and we waited for the magic to begin. When the doctor came in he explained the procedure and prepared everything, including giving me Nitro to hold under my tongue because apparently that helps somehow and telling me to make a crazy all teeth showing smile and hold it for the duration (which fortunately only lasted 22 seconds). After that, I had a splitting headache from the Nitro and was told to lay there for at least 30 minutes. He asked Dan to rub my temples to relieve the headache and we waited until the nurse came in and gave me my instructions for the two week wait.

About 50 minutes later, she came in and told me that I needed to do nothing for the next few days. I can't get my heart rate up, I can't lift anything, I can't have caffeine, alcohol or nicotine (duh!). Thankfully, I quit caffeine a while ago and am doing fine without it and obviously, I am not drinking or smoking so no worries there!

I can lay flat, eat when I am hungry, drink plenty of fluids and take the numerous supplements she gave me to take. I have to take a blood test to confirm pregnancy on the 11th. This will be a long two week wait.

Embryo check in - day 3

So, apparently day three is three days after your egg retrieval day because in embryo land, the count starts with zero. Day zero is the day you get your eggs harvested and three days later, they are checked.

Anyway, by day three, the embryos should have anywhere between 7 and 12 cells. If they do, this is a good sign that they will make it to Blastocyst stage, which is the stage you want on day 5, embryo transfer day (the day they put the embryos back into your body).

The doctor called today after she checked on our four little embryos and let me know that we have two 5 cell embryos, one 8 cell embryo and one 10 cell embryo. Great news that they are all still alive and growing, not so great news about the two only being 5 cell at this point but they could be delayed because they did not fertilize naturally, the doctor had to fertilize the egg instead which could cause the delay. So we won't count them out yet!

The 8 cell and 10 cell though are definitely on target to be nice Blastocysts on Tuesday. She will let them do their thing tomorrow and check them all again on Tuesday before our transfer.

Below is a visual for your prayers. Thank you all!