PUPO

Pregnant until proven otherwise...

That is what we call it in the infertility world. I have an embryo inside of my uterus and it's job is to implant. There is not anything I can really do at this point to help it. There are rumors that eating pineapple core helps with this, but who knows. Yes I will probably try it, but how can you really tell if that is what did it. We did most of the work for this little guy so hopefully he/she can get its act together do the rest itself!!

Transfer went very well yesterday. The emotion of it all came crashing down on me that morning. The progesterone and the estrogen clashed their ugly heads and cried pretty much half the day. It was supposed to be a beautiful moment, but i was heartbroken that only one embryo made it to transfer. Just one. So that means this could be it for us. We have not discussed trying this again. We now have two huge loans to pay off just from IVF x 2. So this is it for now. It is a lot of pressure for this one little embryo to have on it. We will know in about two weeks if this little rascal stuck. Keep us in your prayers. The Two Week Wait is not any fun and I may go crazy lol. I will analyze every cramp and pain and probably pee on 14 sticks. But when I get my blood drawn on that day, this heartache may be over. I know that pregnancy isn't for the weak of heart. That I will also worry like crazy with it too, but just knowing that I have a little human being inside of me will be the biggest blessing I could ask for. Last time I did not post a picture of our embryo, but I want you guys to see exactly who you are praying for! This is Baby Vines...


                                                 

God will provide

I know many have been waiting for updates but due to being a little sad about it I have been putting it off. I know I need to be happy with what we have but I have wanted things to go a certain way. I forget that God has a plan and it may not be the same as ours. So right now we are left with the fertilized mature embryo. I had prayed for all 9 to make it this far because they may stop growing even now and wanted more room to breathe. But we have what we have. These three embryo could be the babies God intended for us to have. Three is more than what some people end up with so I am dealing. My doctor called to give us a time for transfer on Monday. We will do it at one pm. She said they may update her tomorrow and she may let us know something tomorrow if things have gotten bad. Fingers crossed!! Also be in prayers because of enough isn't going on I went to dermatologist yesterday and had a place biopsied for skin cancer. I will know more about that in a week. Love you guys!

Egg Retrieval Take 2

So just a quick update. Retrieval went as expected. They were able to retrieve 9 follicles and will fertilize those this evening. I am feeling alright. Very tender and crampy so trying to just take it easy. Thanks everyone for the thoughts and prayers. Tomorrow we will find out how many matured and fertilized overnight!

Dry Mouth after Midnight

So tomorrow is the big day! We will retrieve all of my potential children from my ovaries that were produces this month! From what the doctor could see it will be between 8-10 follicles. Fingers crossed that some were hiding out or out of those follicles one or two are my miracles babies! I gave my trigger shot last night at 9pm. The typical red, itchy whelp has formed. Wednesday morning we arrive at doctos office at 0730 and will sign consents, get stuck for an IV and Daniel will contribute his little swimmers. Have I mentioned that I can have no food or drink after midnight? Usually not a big deal for me because I am in bed by eleven, but God knows I will be wide awake tonight. I am pretty nervous that one of the many factors going into this process will fail us. There is just so much that has to go right for us to end up with a baby at the end of all of this. I have stayed so positive through it all, but the last day or two the devil has put negative thoughts in my mind. I just have to keep on trucking and by this time next month we will know if we are pregnant or not!

When I needed a hand, I found your paw

 I am sure that some people roll their eyes and think "another dog picture?!?" on my Facebook or instagram page. But until that is all you have, you don't understand. These are our children.Zoe and Bella have been there through the death of our first love Vega. They were sad and licked our tears away as we made the decision to let her go to doggy heaven. Daniel had always wanted an Alapaha so we figured that was the perfect time. Taz came into our lives right after my first surgery for the pre cancer on my cervix. He gave me sweet puppy kisses when I was hurting and scared. He filled the hole in our hearts as we longed for a child. We had fun learning and stressing over how to train a dog of this size. We then had a wonderful opportunity to add to our family with Rose. She joined our family after we decided that IVF was going to be the way we had to go. I never wanted another big dog after Vega. I love my little dogs and they are much easier to manage. But these bulldogs have seriously pulled me in. Yes we take them everywhere because they enjoy being with us and trying new things. Training, traveling and showing has given us a distraction from the longing and depression of not getting pregnant. This weekend I took Taz to the Mutt Strutt at the UAB campus. We had a great time even though we got rained on a little bit. It was a fun way to get some exercise and to get out of the house.
                                              
 I had my ultrasound today after 7 days of stim drugs. My ultrasound Last week went great so I was anxious to see how things were progressing . Left ovary is still being dramatic and slow, but the right side looked great. My estrogen was 1750! To put it in perspective, last round at this point my estrogen was only 748 i think so much much better. We need higher estrogen because that means there are more eggs. So right now I will do another round of shots tonight and go back in the morning for more blood work and ultrasound. The prediction today was that I would do the trigger shot tomorrow night and will do retrieval on Wednesday. The trigger shot is given about 36 hours before retrieval because it induces ovulation in that timeframe. I am so thankful for God letting us get this far in the process. Things have just worked out so well this time and I can feel everyones prayers. It is amazing the response I have gotten from the blog and the people that I do not even know that have sent me encouragement!

Hit me with your Best Shot!

Whew! This week has been draining. Working four in a row, starting my period and starting hormone injections is not the best way to start a week. I went to the doctor on Thursday last week for my baseline before starting injections. The ultrasound was quiet, no cyst or follicles which is what we wanted. I got my blood work drawn and it was less than 20 which was perfect. I was instructed to start my meds on Saturday and come back to doctor today (Thursday). The shots have been extremely draining this time. I have wanted to do nothing but sleep. I went with my work buddies to see a movie on Tuesday and spent some time in Gadsden on Wednesday. Trying to keep myself surrounded with my favorites! Today I had a great doctors appointment. I had my favorite doctor and nurse! And I could actually see follicles this time! My left side was still being slow, but we found the ovary and it had a few follicles on it. My estrogen this time was 500 something. So things are looking promising! I will go back Sunday for more labs and ultrasound and hopefully a trigger shot date!

Exciting Shipment

So to continue from the last post, God works in mysterious ways! I finally got everything sorted out with the insurance. After talking with the insurance lady numerous times yesterday I just reassured by how everything is falling into place. We had been afraid that I have overzealously bought meds that would end up being covered through insurance. We found out that our insurance will cover $5000 of fertility meds a year and the Gonal-F itself is nearly $5000 so they would not be able to pay for the Menopur which is the med that I bought from the girl online. It's crazy! So it worked out perfectly.
So today I have waited on pins and needles for my meds to come in. I cannot explain the excitement to start sticking myself four times a day, but it just means we are that much closer to potentially have a baby in our arms. I will go for my baseline ultrasound on Thursday and pay for the IVF. Saturday will be my first shot! We are doing the Microdose Lupon 10 units in AM and PM. Then Sunday I will start Gonal F 300units and Menopur 150 units along with the Lupron. In the meantime I will be trying my best to relax and remain stress free!

Positive Vibes

Sorry I haven't been keeping updates coming. Kind of been boring the last few weeks. I have gotten potentially great news. Which is followed by not so great news, that I thought was good news. So after talking to a few friends at work I started to look into my medication coverage through my insurance. I noticed something funny on their website hinting at the fact that my meds could be covered. What?!? We just assumed from the get go that they were not and never would be. We had just accepted that when it comes to infertility coverage our insurance was a let down.  So I bugged our wonderful nurse at the clinic to send in a Prior Authorization to Caremark to see what happened. I got the call today that the Prior Authorization was approved by our insurance and she would pass it on to Caremark pharmacy. I am still holding my breath but this could mean that our meds have a copay instead of $4000-6000! The bad news is that I found a facebook page a couple of weeks ago of people selling their unused fertility meds that they had left over. I found a girl in California selling 20 vials of Menopur for $700 which would save us about $1300. So I jumped on it. I trusted this lady I never met and she came through. The meds came in and look perfect. So now I have spent $700 that I may not have needed to. But I never could have guessed that my meds would actually be covered.  Anyways! My first ultrasound is April 9th which is called baseline. They will make sure that the birth control did it's job and everything is quiet in there. No cysts. Estrogen low. Then it is on to the fun stuff. Injections will start that weekend! Yay! Finally! Cannot wait to stick myself four times a day. I am telling you infertility makes you crazy!