I’m Back!

I took a long break from writing. Mostly because having a small babe in the house takes up all of your time. Our little miracle is almost 16 months. It is crazy how fast time goes by. We have been loving every moment of it. I work from home still. It has been getting harder and harder because she has been taking more and more of my time. I try to get as much work in on the phones when she is napping, or when J can help out a little.
My days consist of waking up around 6:30/7 daily, seeing Bri off to school, getting  Pey up, dressed and fed, play time, nap time, lunch time, play time, dinner time, play time, bed time. I love being a mom to two beautiful daughters. I love it so much, J and I have decided to start our journey again with IVF to try to grow our family.

I started BC (birth control) last week and will be starting injections around the 26th of January. I go on on Friday for a baseline ultrasound, and J will have another semen analysis. I am hoping for all good news.
The first week of January we will go in to meet with the financial adviser to go over what insurance coverage we have this time around and what we will need to pay out of pocket. Since it will be the beginning of the year, and our deductible would not be reached, there will be a small about to be paid. Thankfully it will be a discounted price to do IVF. We are very blessed for that.

Since we are ready to start IVF again, I was thinking things would be easy, well for the emotional part. I was wrong though. It could be the birth control hormones trolling me, but I feel like everyone over the past week has been announcing that they are expecting. It is hard. There is still that heart ache. The part that you can’t conceive on your own like most couples. That you have to go through fertility treatments to try to get pregnant. I am really thankful that we have the option to do IVF. I am praying that this time works and we won’t have to do multiple cycles.
I am just not wanting more heartache.
J has been taking Q10 and FertilAid again. He has been taking them for a few weeks now and I have been taking an all natural prenatal vitamin. I hate taking pills, so the less I have to take, the better!

I am going to try to keep writing to keep you all updated. I have been keeping my instagram updated. At least I am good with that! I just have my hands full, in a good way 🙂

 

Until next time!

 

PUPO!

We are officially Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise!

Yesterday we went into the Dr’s office at 12:30 for transfer. They have you come in a half hour prior to your appointment to take a valium. J and I sat and we waited. I was already feeling pretty loopy from the valium before they called me back. I am surprised that I was pretty calm and excited when we were waiting. The nurse called us back to get me ready for transfer. The only nervous part was waiting to here how the embryo’s were doing. I was keeping strong though. After a few minutes our Dr came in with the report. Sadly out of our five, only two made it. One of them was a perfect blastocyst though, what is really good news.  We went ahead and transferred them both. As of right now, I am pregnant with twins again until proven other wise. We go in on the 26th for our blood test.

On our way home, J and I picked up some lunch since we were starving. I wanted to pick up a pineapple on our way home, but neither of us wanted to go to the store. Since I am now officially on bed rest till tomorrow, it was not the best idea for me to run into the store. I asked my sister in law to pick on up for me instead on her way home from work. I was determined to have a pineapple. I have heard wonders about the pineapple core trick. What is the worst thing that could happen? Nothing! I had J cut the pineapple up for me and place the core in a blender with some other fruits and make a smoothie out of it for me. My dear sister in law also picked up some flowers for me and a box of chocolates on behalf of her and J’s parents. I am extremely thankful for them. What girl doesn’t love chocolates, flowers, oh and a pineapple!

One of our friends from church brought our family dinner. I am thankful we are well taken care of by family and friends. Dinner was delicious and is what we needed.

Today is now 1dp5dt (one day past five day transfer). I have been glued to the couch watching Scandal on Netflix. It is getting so good. I have probably dozed off two times to take little cat naps. J has been working from home still. He has been catering to my needs. I made spaghetti sauce last week so I had J boil some noodles for me. Lunch was just was a need to fill my belly. I have all my snacks I need next to me, and my water bottle.

One thing I have noticed is that I have been extremely constipated to the point I get stomach pains. I have been drinking double the amount of water that I normally drink and I have been making sure I have a high fruit and fiber intake. I read online that this is common with all the medications.

For now I need to keep on resting. I am really excited that we had a perfect looking embryo. All we need is that one. I have high hopes right now. Nothing will get me discourage. There is no way I am peeing on a stick either! Even though I think it would be really fun to have a positive pregnancy test, put in in a bracelet box, and stick it in Jason’s stocking on Christmas day. I don’t want anything to ruin my holiday with my family. For now, it is happy thoughts and I am pregnant till some one tells me I am not.

We have four growing strong

This weekend has been pretty good to me. I was able to keep my self busy with retail therapy. Yesterday afternoon I went out with my sister in law to get some things for Christmas presents. She was pretty worn out after a hour our two so we grabbed a late lunch and head back home. For the past few days I have been taking things easy, I decided to find a new show to watch on Netflix. I started to watch Scandal. It has me pulled in pretty good. I truly love the addicting TV shows. When I got home from shopping, I was able to squeeze an episode before my best friend called me to let me know she was ready for our girls night. I am glad that we got to go out together. We both have been through so much and we both really needed to get out of the house. I met her at her house and off we went to do more shopping! On the bright side, I was able to finish all of my shopping! That is a big stress reliever right there. I have all of the stocking stuffers and all of the last minute gifts. Now I just need to wrap up the rest of things. When Holl’s and I were at Kohls, we noticed they had a bunch of Juicy Couture purses, clutches, and wallets. (one thing about me, I love ANYTHING Juicy Couture, ANYTHING! My glasses are even Juicy Couture)
Holl and I both came across these black wallet clutches that were on sale. I feel in love with them. We both splurged and got the same one. I will be handing it over to Santa to put under the Christmas Tree though. I seriously can not wait to use it.

J has still been under the weather from his surgery and Bri is gone for the weekend. It has been a very “me” weekend. This Sunday happened to be the week I had to teach. I decided to teach on making Christ the center of their homes. What a great lesson to teach around Christmas. I found these cute chocolate ginger bread houses and tied a quote on them for the girls. I am very thankful that I teach these young girls. Being able to prepare lessons and teach them helps me become a more better person.

Just before church got over my phone started to ring and I had to silence it. I knew it was the Fertility Center calling me to go over my embryo report that I have been waiting for. Thankfully she left me a VM to go over my transfer time and how the embryo’s are doing. I go in Tuesday afternoon for transfer like anticipated. We have four 8 cell embryo’s that are going strong and one 5 cell. I am not sure if the 5 cell is going to make it, but I am extremely thankful that we have the four. What a blessing to have. I am praying that they all make it to Tuesday to full blastocyst. I am trying to stay very optimistic about this.

Six Fertilized

I got the call from the lab yesterday afternoon. She went over all of the numbers with me.

21 Eggs Eetrieved

12 Matured Eggs

6 Fertilized with ICSI

I was stressed about J’s number so I asked; 12million per ml & 25% motility

I was having a really hard time with these numbers because I felt like the last cycle that we did in September had a lot better numbers, I went through my blog post and wrote down the numbers to compare.

21 Retrieved

16 Mature

13 Fertilized

6 made it to day 3 (8cells)

2 made it to transfer.

I did have them tell me J’s count last time as well. I was under the impression that it was 11million per ml, but she told me over the phone that it was 13.6 million per ml and 28% motility.  So in all I feel like last cycle’s number’s we better all around. Why would this cycle be worse? I was having such a hard time.  I started to cry about it. I can just see this all failing and then we will not have anything to transfer. I started emailing one of my friends who has been going through the same thing. Secondary infertility, first ivf cylce failed, moved on to number two and is on her TWW. Her husband was taking Q10 as well for around 2 months. They transferred two perfect looking blastocyst. From what I remembered, she had a low amount of embryos as well. Talking to her made me feel a little bit better about things.

I have to teach a lesson at church tomorrow and I had a local print shop print off some handouts for me. I ran into one of my old coworkers daughter in law’s who told me who much she admires me for everything that I have been through. (She follows my journey on Instagram) She asked how I was doing and what the next steps are. It is truly nice to know that there are so many people out there rooting for J and I.

I moved Bri’s piano lesson’s to Friday and when I was there my mother in law sent me a text asking if I had heard from the lab. I wanted to break down all over again. I wrote down the numbers on a pice of paper while I was at work and took a picture of it so I can send it to family and friends. I sent it over to her and told her how scared I am about this cycle. We text back and forth about everything. She said “you know, all it takes is that one”  She was right. Why am I stressed so badly about only having six? Six is such a good number to have! even if they do not all make it, all we need is that one to turn into a perfect blastocyst. I have so much faith that is we transfer a perfect blastocyst, then we will have a positive cycle.

I will get my next report some time tomorrow to go over how the embryo’s are doing. It will truly be a blessing to hear that all six, maybe eight are at 8 cells. We will see. Till then I need to be patient, I need to have faith, and I need to trust the Lord.

Day Eight

I just got done at my eight day check up. Everything looks great. One of my follicles are measuring at 15 1/2mm. They need to be at 18mm to trigger. They grow about 2mm a day. My nurse told me that I may be able to trigger tomorrow. That would be a day earlier than expected. It can still be Tuesday night though. We will see!
This cycle has been going by really fast.
Last night I had the worst migraine! I ended up going to bed really early. I rubbed some peppermint oil on my forehead, took some extra strength Tylenol, had J give me a massage in the dark, curled up in a ball and went to sleep. Luckily I woke up this morning and it was gone. I do I have slight headache still. I can deal with that though.
I have been extremely uncomfortable. Wearing pants is a chore now! I seriously went to work in yoga pants on Friday! Oops! It was casual Friday, right? I have still been irritated with anything and everything. My hormones are out of whack. I definitely do not feel like my self. I rather feel like this though than the emotional wreck that I was when I was taking estrogen and progesterone. That is one thing that the IVF pamphlet’s don’t tell you, you seriously sell you soul to fertility medications. This is all for a good cause though and I am extremely grateful to be able to do this.

Day Four, the roller coaster begins

Today is my fourth day of injections. Menopur and Follistim are my best friends that greet me at 7:30am, NOT! All though they’re there, I wish I did not have to go through this all over again.

I have found my self very quite through this second cycle. I want to keep to my self about it. I have not really talked much about it, until today. I felt like I needed to speak up and let every one know that this is such a hard battle. I may seam like Super Women, but I am not. I am just me.

Our first IVF cycle I was very pumped about thing. I was finally going to be able to be pregnant! I thought for sure that it was going to work. I was super positive about things. I was very optimistic. Then J and I got the news that it did not work. What a world of hurt. We had 2 embryos transferred, our only 2 that made it. The idea of IVF failing and doing a FET was out the window.

We then met with our amazing doctor who broke things down for us. Right away I started back up on BC. Only a little over 2 weeks of a little pill every afternoon. I felt like the side effects where not that bad as last time. I did notice I was breaking out like a teenager. My last BCP was on Thanksgiving. How I was so excited and shouted with joy! (I hate taking pills)

Friday I went in for my baseline ultrasound. Everything looked great. The nurse did tell me that my lining was thin and to expect my period. I also had my blood work drawn to make sure me levels were where they needed to be to start injections. Sunday morning was my first day. I felt so out of it. I had to teach my class at church and all I wanted to do was climb into bed and nothing.  After church, I put on my pajamas and curled up on my couch and watched TV. I did not even want to move.

Monday was a little better. I felt like my self. My period did show up and made things a lot more fun for me. Cramps are the worst when you can only take Tylenol for pain. On top of that, I was getting bad head aches.

Tuesday I went into the doctors for more blood work. My levels are where they need to be. My dosage of medication will not change.

Wednesday/Today I feel a little pain. Menstrual cramps are out of the picture, now it is just the uncomfortable bloating pain from my ovaries. My stomach is slowing starting to puff out. I do not have any bruising, how ever I do have red dots all of my stomach from the shots.

My thoughts right now are all over the place. I don’t know how to feel about this cycle. I do not know if I should be excited like I was last time. I want to be pumped up. I also don’t want to be a Debby Downer and think that this wont work. Instead I just feel numb, like it is just something I am doing for the heck of it and I should not think anything of it. I question my self on if I should really be doing this. I am sure a lot of this is coming from my psychotic hormones. Thank you Menopur and Follistim for doing this to me! Gaaah.

I go back in on Friday for another ultrasound and more blood work. I will be starting Ganirelix some time the end of the week as well. Ganirelix is to make sure my body does not ovulate. That is a big NO during IVF. I will be going in every day this weekend. They need to keep a close eye on my levels and follicles. They need to be that perfect size in order to do my HCG Trigger Shot.  If all goes to plan like it did last cycle, I should be doing my Trigger Shot on Tuesday and then retrieval on Thursday the 11th.

I pray that this cycle works, I don’t want to do it all over again in another two months. This has been the worst emotional and physical thing to be dealing with. I want to be my self. I think if this cycle fails, it would be good to take a little break from things.

Whats next for IVF??

Happy Wednesday Funday! I have to say that Wednesday are my favorite, well kinda. It means it is half way through the week. Lately Wednesdays have been super busy for me. After I left work, I got Brianna from school and headed to our local Walmart to pick up pictures for a photo album I am making for my grandmother’s 80th birthday party on Saturday. I was home for maybe 30 minutes tops before J got home and we had to leave for our Dr appointment. Now it is time to relax for the next hour before I have to head out for a church activity.

I did not know what to expect with our appointment. J and I have been telling our self that we will wait till the beginning of the new year. Today is the first day for enrollment for insurance for 2015. We both agreed that we will find a new company with the same benefits or better.  We don’t think we have much left for another cycle. Our doctor thinks that we might have enough. She is going to have her RN look into it. Usually medications is covered under a different amount. We will find out next week what is left. J and I both agreed that we will pay out  of pocket up to $2,000, anything more we will just wait till January. I know it seams lame because most people pay out of pocket for IVF. We have the coverage though with his work and if it is more than $2,000, waiting till January will cost the same price with our deductions. If all goes well the way we planned then we will start birth control on my next cycle. It will be a fast one, so BC for two weeks (thank goodness) then on to stims.

Now since last cycle it seamed liked the embryos stopped developing at day 3, I ask our Dr what would cause that. She explained everything perfectly to us. J count was awesome! over 10mil 😀 yay! its been all the way down to 4mil. The thing is, the heath of the sperm is causing the embryo to stop developing. Our Dr gave J a list of things to start taking daily to increase the heath of them. J will start taking them now so if we do a cycle in December, they will be nice and ready. Same with January if that is the route we go. Either way, We are doing another cycle.

I really hope we have enough for this year. I would love to be able to jump right back in. I feel optimistic about this. being on BC for 2 weeks is nothing. Now 5 weeks is another story. That was too long!!!

We will know more next week what route we go. As for now, mine and J’s home work is to research policies for next year.

Gratitude fills the heart

I know it is half way through the week and I am finally writing about my weekend. It was pretty fulfilling. Thursday was the most heartbreaking day I have had in a long time. I cried all night long and if I think about what happened, I still want to cry. I still don’t fully understand why. I would of never thought that I would be that one who had IVF fail on the first try. Here I am though. I am one of those girls. I guess only the strong ones can handle this. Even though I feel weak to the knees, I know I can push through this. I have God, my Husband, my Family and my Friends to support me.

Friday J and I had a double date with his little sister and the guy she has been seeing. It was such a fun night. Something I really needed to do to get my mind off things. I laughed at so many jokes at the dinner table. After we had dinner, we went to a near by shopping center that does a witches night out every year. It has a lot of festivities to do. We walked around and did a scavenger hunt to find hidden things and took lots of pictures to remember the night we had.

Saturday I had one of my close friends wedding that I was a part of. She made me one of her Bridesmaids. I was delighted to be a part of her big day. It was a beautiful day. She got married in the Salt Lake Temple. She was a glowing bride.  I could not be more happy for her. They had their luncheon at the lion House what is right next to the Temple. I was in love with the interior design, and the food! Since it was a more of a dinner, I was satisfied with the amount of food I had. We barely had enough time to run to Walmart to pick up a wedding gift then head to the reception. Bri was able to sing to them in front of everyone. It was a dream come true. On our way home, she started saying how she was not good enough. This Brings me to my next topic. As you know, previously I teach 14 and 15 year old girls at church and the topic this week was on Gratitude. I have been thinking so much about it. I told Bri that she needs to be thankful that Danielle and McKay picked her to sing at their wedding, no one else! They wanted her! She needs to be thankful for that opportunity. I said other words too that made her think about the situation better.

Sunday I had my lesson. I have been such a wreck that I was not able to prepare it as well as I could. I slacked a lot. I put some thought into it and decided that I was going to have my girls watch the conference talk that President Dieter Uchtdorf gave. I bought each girl a Journal to keep and use as a Gratitude Journal. I passed them out in the beginning of class and told them I wanted them to take notes while listing to the talk. I wanted them to think about what the talk was on and the title of the talk. It was 20 minutes long so it took up most of the time I had to teach. After the talk was over we talked about the words that he said. It is such a powerful talk. He addresses a lot that we are mostly thankful for things after things fall into place the way we want it to, but how we are wrong. We need to be thankful in any circumstance. Of course it was more powerful in his own words! I talked to my girls about this and we made goals together. I told them how this week has been really hard for me. I did not go into detail. I told them I got the most devastating news that I did not want to hear. Even though I was in heart ache, I needed to show my father in heaven how grateful I was to have the opportunity to go through what I did. Even though it did not give me the out come I was expecting. Every day we need to show gratitude. No mater if we are in heart ache or we are in the happiest mood.

BFN

Yesterday was the most nerve racking day for me. I went into the doctors office at 8:30am to have my blood drawn for my pregnancy test. I had so many doubts. I tried to have faith, but it was so hard. I have been let down so many times I didnt even want to get my hopes up.

I got to work and I was fine until my boss came into the office and asked me to come into his office. He asked me how I was doing. I tried to be strong but I could not do it. Tears started running down my face. I sat on his couch in his office and told him how scared I was. I have worked for him for almost three years now and this is the third time he has seen me cry. I am a strong girl usually. Dealing with infertility, it is a different story. He gave me a pep talk and then I started to feel better.

I got home from work and picking Bri up from school and all I did was lay on my bed. I was so nervous and scared that I was going to get a call that says the test came back negative. They told me that they would call before 6pm with the results so this whole time I am laying on my bed watching the time pass by. I eventually had Jason turn on the TV in our room to keep my mind off things. My sister then came over. I invited her over prior to watch the Season 3 Episode 1 of The Arrow (if you have not seen it, watch it). The time was getting closer to 6pm and I was telling Jason how they should be calling! I have my phone blowing up with family and friends wanting to know what was going on. No kidding, 5:50pm my phone rings. It was the doctors office. Ashley, the RN was on the other line and she said the words “I am so sorry Amber, but it came back negative”. I started to cry. I was in so much heart ache and in a world of lost words. I had no idea what to say back. I was hurt. Even though I had doubts, I still wanted to hold on to my faith that it would work. I cried all night long. Till who knows what time. I tried to hold it together so I could tell my parents and my sisters.

Jason ended up getting dinner at a near by restaurant to bring home. Since I was a wreck, I had no motivation to cook or ever go anywhere. Bri wanted to have a picnic on the floor in the living room and watch tv while we ate dinner. So we ate and watched Arrow together. It was a nice break to get away from all of those emotions.

Some how in the mix of bawling my eyes out last night, I managed to get my right ear clogged! I have tried everything to get it to pop and nothing! I can not even hear out of my ear right now. I have tried oils, hydrogen peroxide, chewing gum, plugging my nose and blowing, warm compress on my ear, You name it! I still get nothing. It is the most annoying thing I can deal with right now.

This morning I started to go over my lesson I am preparing for my girls on Sunday. I decided the beginning of the week I was going to teach them a lesson on Gratitude. Who knew I would need this lesson this week more than anything. I decided to listen to the talk Dieter Uchtdorf gave called “Grateful in any Circumstances” What a great talk to listen to. I have to admit, I did tear up. He said towards the end, “There are no true endings, only everlasting beginnings”. Those words are what I needed to hear at this moment. This is not the end of the road. Just because this IVF cycle did not work, it does not mean it will never work. We must have faith and trust the Lord. We need to fill our hearts with gratitude on the things we have in this life. I am thankful that we have this opportunity to do a cycle of IVF. I am beyond thankful and blessed with the things that I have in this life. I have so much to be thankful for. I am thankful to have this opportunity to share with everyone around me. I love you all!

4dp5dt

I have been feeling very discouraged lately. I just feel like this Is not going to work. I have been wanting to just break down and cry. I know I am only 4 days past but I decided that I should take a HPT, and behold what did I get, a BFN. Just like always. The last time I got a BFP was when I took a HPT the morning after my trigger shot. Why must I deal with this trial? I really don’t understand the meaning of it. Why does any person have to suffer from this when we have been promised to be fruitful that we will be able to replenish the earth. I am in so much heart ache right now. I know I am only 4 days past, and it could still be to soon to tell. There can be hope still. I would be so happy if I found out that it worked. It would be the best thing ever. It’s been something we have been waiting and wanting for so long.
I may just need to stay away from the HPT till beta day. I need to clear my head and stay positive with things. I need to have faith that things will work out ❤️

Right now the only symptoms I have are that I am emotional and cranky. Here and there I have got small cramps. I have no idea what to think of them though. Especially the emotional part because that can all be a side effect of the estrogen.
I need a good weekend free from anything dramatic. I am thinking this weekend will be good though.