Oh...what a bad mom I am

Well our little snow baby arrived in Dallas yesterday! A friend called last night to ask if it was in Dallas or still in Wichita and by gosh I didn't even know. What a horrible mom I am already! I'm too busy to even think about where he/she is. So first thing this morning I gave the Dallas office a call and they said it arrived yesterday safe and sound. I also paid for our upcoming FET today, as we are wanting to write off any and every medical thing we can this year. It's going to make me sick when we do our taxes and really see the number we have spent this year...ugh. If all goes as planned we should be ready to transfer it at the end of January. I hope this doesn't interfere with school so I don't have to miss or tell them what we are doing. This year has gone so fast! I can't believe Christmas is next week already. The girl I work with that is also starting nursing school with me said we only have two paychecks left until school starts....Yikes! I then started thinking that's only 4 weeks and only 4 weekends and only 30 days before my life is going to drasticly change. How exciting and yet scary all at the same time, but i'm ready for a new adventure!

FET Protocol

We organized the shipping of our last embryo. It should be shipping out next week. Just a few papers we have to sign and off to Dallas it goes. I was thinking about this upcoming FET (frozen embryo transfer) and how different the protocol is. I will only be on estrace (estrogen) and progesterone where as last time I had to take two other meds to control when I ovulate. So I was starting to panic and thinking what is he doing, does he know what he is doing. I did some research online last night and found a study that was done. It's a more natural protocol and it works just as well. I also posted on twoweekwait.com and asked if anyone else had this same protocol and there was one lady that replied and she is currently pregnant with twins. If you are really interested then you can learn more about it at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2467429/ . I don't think my body really likes all the medication so maybe this will be it!

Surprise... Surprise.....

All is fine with my blood work. The next step is for Jason to get tested but I think we are going to put that on hold until we find out how much this one is going to cost us. The last one ran us $900...YIKES!! Thanksgiving was good but the holidays get harder and harder each year. Every year that goes by I think this will be the Christmas that we will be pregnant or maybe even have a baby in our arms and every year those dreams are crushed. Jason would be an amazing father and that would be the most amazing gift I could give him. For some reason it is not our time and by gosh I am ready to know why! Thanksgiving and Christmas is about spending time with family and when you have no family of your own you start to feel shunned by society. Everyone carries on with their lives and we are just stuck wishing, hoping and now praying that one day soon this will all work out for us and we can have a baby! I wish I could just forget about wanting to be a parent so the pain would go away.

Here we go again...

I just got off the phone with our Dr in Dallas and he is happy to do a frozen transfer with our last embryo. Man is he a serious guy but I think that's why he is so good at what he does. He wants us to wait until I have cycled twice since I miscarried. So... bring on aunt flow so we can get this started. The tricky part is going to be getting the embryo down to Dallas. The two offices will have to coordinate the transfer. We have the choice of using fedex or driving the tank with our little one down to Dallas. Again he does things very different... no birth control or Lupron just straight estrogen tablets and progesterone injections. I will only have to go down two times, once for a sonogram and then for the transfer. I sent pics of our last embryos and he said they look really good and the one we have left is our best one. He also said we were making a good decision by using this. Why keep it frozen!? Throughout our conversation he was quizzing me making sure I was paying attention. I learned from our first appointment to take notes. I ended up with six neon green sticky notes with scribbles on stuff all over. I will have to rewrite everything so if I am quizzed again I will pass. :) He will call in my new meds on Monday and he wants the embryo down in Dallas with in 10 days. He is ready to get this going and so are we!!

more blood work

Not sure if anyone is still reading but thought I would continue to post. Since last weeks blood work came back normal I was sent to be stuck again for more blood this morning. I had to go to Quest diagnostic which is just a lab. It was nice not to go to the ob/gyn office, sometimes it's really hard to step in there and see all the ladies that are pregnant there for their checks. They are starting with me on the chromosome testing and if I come back fine then they will check Jason. I'm sure these will come back fine as well. Not that I want something like this to be wrong I still just want some answers. I feel like my emotions are finally getting under control, not sure if Jason would agree. It's been a tough 3 weeks I try and hide everything which doesn't help me but I guess I just don't want people to know how I really feel. I also know that I'm not the only one who has gone through all this but it's hard every time you turn around someone is pregnant or complaining about their children. As you can maybe sense I am still a little angry I'm sure it will pass with time.

blood work results

The nurse finally called me back last night and said blood work looked fine so the next step would be chromosomal testing. They will do that next week and if mine comes back fine they will check Jason. We may be going to Dallas again in January we received a storage bill for our 1 frozen embryo and it's not worth paying the amount they want. Our choices are to discard it, use it or pay for the costly storage. We are thinking we will use it. I have a phone consult with the Dr in Dallas on the 24th so we will see what he says.

Went to Dr appt this morning

I had my blood drawn yesterday and the nurse had the results for me this morning. She said my hcg level was down to a 12 which means I did miscarry. I also had my thyroid checked and that was with in normal range. I got to sit and talk with the Dr about everything with our infertility, miscarriage and my symptoms I had while pregnant for those few weeks. I told her how my bones hurt I was so cold and my hair was falling out like crazy. The not so nice nurse told me yesterday that pregnancy symptoms are different for everyone and that mine were normal. The doctor of course said they were not so normal. She is wanting me to start taking a baby aspirin everyday and ordered some testing. They took 5 vials of blood to check for antiphosphlipid syndrome, Lupus and she said something about rheumatoid. If those all come back fine we will do some chromosomal testing on both Jason and I. She was a little bothered by the doctor down in Dallas not doing a pregnancy test before doing my mock transfer. I told her really what are the chances that I would be. She said you would be quite surprised. We should have results back by Friday or Monday.

we made it further this time but not as far as we wanted

I'm sorry I lied in the last post but we found out we were pregnant and I wanted to wait until we were further along to tell anyone. Unfortunately we are miscarrying again. Monday's blood work was pretty low for where I should be at. I'm going to call my doctor this morning but I'm sure it's happening. I'm starting to get some bad cramps but no spotting yet. I really thought this was it. Now that we know this can happen all natural we will not be doing another IVF. I'm afraid that if we spend the money I will just miscarry so why waste it.

IVF moved to Dec

I was able to go to my local doctor for some blood work so they could get me going on a medication to help start my period. I will take it for a week and it should start 1-2 weeks after. We are now looking at doing the IVF in mid Dec and if it gets any later than that we will have to wait until Jan. Christmas time is the only time this doc takes off.

Calling the office Monday morning

Well still no aunt flow so tomorrow I will call the office to see if they can give me something to get me going. I almost had to do this before we did our first IVF cycle in Jan. What stress can do to your body :(

waiting....& waiting....

I must be stressed or something. Aunt flow is delayed about a week again. She is really messing up my plans. I'm ready to get this cycle started!! As soon as she arrives I will start my birth control and go in to a local lab to have blood drawn. I've never been so excited to have my period!! lol

back from "fake" transfer

Today went well. Norma and I were on the road just before 5:00am this morning. My appointment was at 11 so we had about 45min to shop before. The nurse met with me first to go over my medications and schedule. I will call her hopefully Monday or as soon as my period starts to get everything scheduled. She was a little surprised that we are traveling so many hours but said she was excited for us. I then went into a different room and got ready for my mock "fake" transfer. This was different in that I didn't have to have a full bladder. For my 3 previous transfers I was miserable from all the water I had to drink. He placed the catheter into the top of my uterus and took a measurement and drew a bunch of stuff on a piece of paper. He said it would be a easy transfer and I will not have to have a full bladder. I'm still a little crampy but he said this procedure is very important because when the real transfer takes place the embryo needs to be placed just right so it can implant. Well worth the cramps!

30th Surprise

Wow what a SURPRISE! Jason did a great job of putting together a surprise party for my 30th birthday (I think with a little help from my mom and sister). Almost all my family came, just a few had other obligations. I was having a really hard time putting it all together when I saw my in-laws and my sister. I was so confused how they got there so fast! So fast meaning...I had just talked to my sister and she said she was scrapbooking and Phil was down watching football. Norma called to ask about a shovel she thought we borrowed. Everyone did a great job keeping the secret! After it was all over I started piecing it all together. There were so many clues but I knew that Jason would never do anything like that....boy was I wrong! It was so good to spend my birthday with friends and family!!

Nursing school here I come...

After struggling with infertility I decided to go back to school to be a nurse. There is no better way to understand what people are going through than to have experienced it yourself. I first thought I wanted to go work for the reproductive endocrenologist here in town (that's when I thought he could get me pregnant). Today it became offical I received my acceptance letter in the mail. A girl I work with was also accepted, she went home for lunch and called to tell me her letter was there. We had to work until 5 o'clock tonight so needless to say my afternoon was very long. I was so nervous to open it so I let Jason. Of course he tried to read the letter as if I was not accepted I dind't know what to think and then I realized he was messing with me. To see the word Congratulations really took a lot of weight off my shoulders. I will start in Jan 2010 and graduate in Dec 2011!

Hysteroscopy went well

We are headed back to Wichita. My appointment went as expected. They found nothing that could be the cause of our infertility. The nurse said she had never seen such a beautiful uterus. I guess that's a compliment. I told him that everything in the past has been text book. He said if it would make me feel better mine wasn't text book but very pretty! Part of me wanted them to find something wrong just so I would have an answer to why I can't get pregnant. Oh and the Valium that I was so worried about really hasn't done anything to me. I could have just saved my $1.74 and all the stress of wondering if I would be a babbling idiot on the way home. Our next appt will be October 16th. He will do a mock transfer and go over the medications that day. Another thing my last office didn't do.

AF has finally arrived

I will be heading down to Dallas next Friday 9/25. My appointment is at 3:00pm. Norma (my mother in-law) will be my chauffeur for this trip. I will have to take Valium 30 min before my appointment. The pharmasist said it stays in your system for about 8 hours, so no driving for me. I haven't talked it over with her but i'm sure it will be another 1 day trip. I hate to spend the money on hotel so early in the game. I'm sure there will be plenty of oppertunities for us to stay in Dallas.

Tomorrow is Hillsboro's yearly craft show so mom and a friend of hers, Maryann are on their way down for the weekend. I've been keeping our lastest project from her. I wanted to see if she noticed when she walked in the door. If she doesn't I will be shocked.

Still waiting...

Well Aunt Flow is being really stubborn this month. I won't know anything until my cycle starts which I thought would be last weekend, and I was wrong. The Dr. wants to see me between cycle day 6-10. I am hoping AF starts anytime now. It would be great if this would all work out that I could go next Friday and not miss work. I ordered my medications they will be arriving next Thursday so my kitchen table will look like a pharmacy. This doctor was really nice and ordered me shorter needles. Only 1" this time not 1.5". I think the 1.5 was a little to much considering I don't have much meat on my hips. All the other medications are about the same as last time, just a couple changes that I will have to talk to the nurse about when ever I go down.

After our trip to Dallas...

Well after 10 hours in the car Friday we learned that we need to stop more often to stretch. Jason called Saturday morning from work telling me his leg was swollen, red and warm to the touch. After researching it online it sounded like he had a blood clot. He ended up going to the ER last night around 7. They did a sonogram to confirm that it was a blood clot, but that it was superficial and not deep which is a good thing. The doc said superficial clots can not travel to the heart or lungs. They gave him an antibiotic, told him to apply heat, and take an aspirin everyday. He will need to follow up with a vascular surgeon in the next week or two.

Our New RE

Today was the start of a new journey with infertility. After 3 failed IVF cycles this year we decided to get a second opinion. We researched many doctors in the Midwest, and we found what we think is one of the best Reproductive Endocrinologist within a reasonable driving distance. We made a one day trip down to Dallas for our first appointment with our new RE. Before our appointment we stopped at Whataburger (Jason's favorite burger joint). The office is in a very nice new area just north of Dallas. I feel very comfortable about driving down myself for all the appointments we will have this fall. This doctor has a very different personality than our first one. He is very serious and straight forward about everything. He answered all of our questions we had rather than just giving us some vague answer and saying you are young you have time. Our next trip down will be the middle of September, he is going to do an office Hysteroscopy. This is a procedure that will check for any abnormalities that my be contributing to our infertility. I will head back down 1-2 times in October and then around the middle of November we will be making a trip every other day for about 2 weeks. I have plans of contacting my cousin's mom in hopes of staying with her a couple times I think she lives fairly close. If anyone is up for a trip to Dallas just let me know I would love the company. I'm excited and very confident that he will be able to help us start our family!

WOW....we are finally done canning!! This was our first attempt at canning and I would have to say it went pretty well. About half way through our pickles we read that it helps to cut the cucumbers then soak in ice water for 4 hours to help with the crispness. We haven't had a chance to compare them yet but everyone that has tried them said they were wonderful. At the local farmers market I purchased some Mt. Dew jelly for my sister and she said it was really good. We might experiment with some different sodas and attempt jelly.