Emotional Update

So I thought I would write a post today just to talk about all of the crazy emotions I have been dealing with for the past few days.  I am so lucky that my mom was able to come out here on Thursday.  She was the first family member/friend (besides Dave and Logan)  that I saw since I received the news on Monday.  I love my mom so much because she just knows when I need to talk about something and when I am just not ready.  I am very thankful that she just lets me talk when I need to even though I am sure she wishes I would open up more.  I have found that it is one thing to write about how I am feeling and a completely different thing to talk about it.  I am still having a really hard time talking about everything.  It was like this before and I know in time it will be a lot easier to talk about everything freely but for now its pretty tough.  The next morning my in-laws came home from Pennsylvania so our house is pretty full right now.  :-)  On friday my great aunt Ruth and uncle Pete happened to be in Tucson for a wedding so they drove to visit us.  I was surprised by Kristal who came over and brought dinner for us.  Thanks Kristal!  It was so nice to see everyone but it wasn't very easy to keep a smile on my face when I am still hurting so badly inside.

Even though I am feeling so upset and disappointed, I am excited and extremely grateful that we get a second chance.  That is another thing that I have been struggling with.  I was starting to feel like I shouldn't feel so sad right now when we have this wonderful gift of a second chance.  But I am realizing that I need to let myself deal with what happened on our first round and just because I am so sad that the first round didn't work it doesn't mean that I am not thankful for the chance to do it again.  I realized that I am allowed to feel the way that I am.

Yesterday my mom and I spent a nice day together getting our nails done-Thanks mom- and going out to lunch.  It was SOOO nice to spend that time with her.  Then it was time to face the world for a birthday party.  Part of me wanted to stay at home and hide from everyone but I had to stop hiding.  So off to Chelsi's 80's themed birthday party.

I had fun getting ready with the girls and laughed hysterically at the boys in their workout gear.  Honestly I had a hard time at the party.  I felt like I wasn't ready to be in public and pretend everything is ok but when you have 3 grown men in booty shorts it is hard not to smile.  

Today is my last day with my mom and then tomorrow I start back to work.  I am so very thankful that I get to spend my summers at home with my family.  I just feel like a basket case right now because tonight I have to say goodbye to my mom and I don't get to spend my days with Logan anymore.  I know at some point today I am going to cry.  For now I am going to soak in every minute of today with my family.    

I need some suggestions on reducing stress.  My doctor says I need to reduce my stress this time around.  So I am a mom taking full time classes, starting a new full time job, and teaching color guard.  What can I do to help reduce stress?  I would appreciate some suggestions!    

I know this post has been pretty scatter brained but thats how I feel right now.  I have a million things running through my head at a time.  I know I'll start to sort through all of these emotions soon but this is where I'm at right now.  

 

Negative and Positive

Here we are the day after the blood test.  While writing this blog it has been very difficult to be 100% open and honest but I have been and I need to keep doing so.  Yesterday I was wishing I had never been so public about our journey because now I have to be public about the results.  The blood test was negative.  It didn't work.  I physically had two embryos placed inside of me and I still am not pregnant. I am 29 years old and unable to be pregnant.  When I got that call all I kept thinking was why am I so broken?  Why do I have such a strong desire to have another baby if I am not supposed to.  And how am I supposed to go online and tell the world all of these awful thoughts I was having when I was so hopeful that it would work.  But part of the process of IVF is the chance that it won't work.  Unfortunately for us this time it did not work.  I am not losing hope.  Keep reading and I'll tell you why.

Yesterday morning I was a nervous wreck.  I put pandora on when I woke up and the song "Lord, I need you" was on.  The same song that was playing the first day I walked into our church.  My friend Stacy went with me and we were at the doctors office a little past 9am.  I was taken back at 10am had my blood drawn and walked out the door at 10:10am.  That was it, just a prick of a needle and a "We will call you between 1pm and 2pm with the results."  I was completely freaking out.  We went to Ikea and wandered around-with my phone in my hand the entire time and then went to the Arizona Mills Mall.  When we stopped for lunch I had a minor panic attack, it was 1:30pm and still no call.  We decided to leave and I was driving on I-10 when the phone rang.  My heart stopped as I answered the phone and all I heard was "Unfortunately....negative...medicine....follow up."  I said "Ok, Thank you" and hung up the phone.  Tears were streaming down my face and Stacy just reached across and put her hand on my arm.  Sometimes there are no words that can be said but just a simple touch can speak volumes.  I am so thankful that she was with me when I heard the news.  I asked her to help me find out where Dave was -he was at his first day back at work training at a different school- and we went straight to him.  When we got there I just fell into his arms and cried.  I was so heartbroken and didn't have any words.  There were a thousand thoughts going through my head, why didn't it work, what did I do wrong, did the doctor do something wrong, how could I have been feeling so many symptoms-were they just side effects of the medication, I know that god has a plan for us but how could having this heartache and disappointment again be apart of god's plan, and the money....we spent every last penny and financed even more and for what?  Stacy drove my car home and I went home with Dave.  To top things off when we got home Penny was sick and pooped all over the house!  Stacy picked Logan up for us from Leah's house and dropped him off.  It was so hard to not be a basket case in front of Logan but I held it together.

We spent the night cuddling on the couch watching a movie and then went to bed.  Once in bed Dave and I talked about all of the things that we were thinking and feeling.  It was such a hard conversation but we couldn't let it go a month before talking like it did when  we lost our third pregnancy.  I cried half the night and was up with a pounding headache the second half of the night.  Dave took the next day off to be with me and we had to get up early to go downtown to fill out paperwork for me to start working with Dave on Monday.  When I was finished at 9:30am Dave called the doctors office to schedule our follow up appointment.  They kept trying to give him day time appointments but he is back to work now so he said unless we can come in today we will have to wait until a late afternoon appointment.  They told us that they would bring us in at 12:30 today on their lunch breaks.  Since we were in Phoenix already it did not make sense to drive all the way home to turn around and drive all the way back.  We went to ikea to wander around and grab some lunch before heading to the appointment.   Dave said to me jokingly "Maybe someone would give us a ton of money or the doctor will do the second transfer pro-bono"  We both said yeah right...keep dreaming.

Before we knew it it was time to go.  We were thinking we would go, they would say sorry it didn't work, it will be $5000 + to do another frozen embryo transfer with our remaining embryos and we would say "see you in a few years after we finish paying for this one and save up enough money to do it again"  I felt so hopeless and heartbroken walking back into that doctors office.  I knew our bank account is darn near empty...why are we even bothering with the appointment?

So here is where the positive comes in.  Yesterday our pastor's wife sent me a text message saying to read Matthew 6:26.  It says " Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"  She was reminding me that God will take care of us.  I did not know how but I found out today.  When we got into the appointment the doctor was telling us how my body did exactly what it was supposed to just the embryos did not do what they were supposed to.  She said that the next step is to do a second frozen embryo transfer with our remaining 5 embryos.  I asked her how long you have to wait to try again and she said that we would start immediately.  I told her that we can't do that, we spent all of our money and she said "I want to do it for free for you".  Dave and I immediately started crying.  What doctor does that???  What a blessing.  She said that we will have to pay for the medications but everything else would be free.  The blood work, ultrasounds, the implant, all free.  So we will be starting the frozen cycle again soon.  I will go on birth control in a few days and be on it for a few weeks.  The transfer will happen either at the end of August or the beginning of September.  We will have to figure out a way to pay for the medication this time around.  We are hoping to raise the money with our Coryell's Craft Corner to be able to afford them.  I am estimating they will cost between $500 and $1000 which is a reasonable goal to try and meet.     


I am not going to lie and say that I have no reservations about trying again.  It scares me to death.  It is terrifying to think about getting bad news again and not having any more embryos left to use.  But why would we be given this gift if we weren't supposed to try again?  While I am still so completely disappointed that it didn't work and I think it will take some time for my heart to recover from this I find myself hopeful again.  Thank you all so much for all of your support and prayers through everything.  Would you like to go on another roller coaster ride with us?  I will continue the blog through the second round and hope that you will continue to follow our journey.  We could use all of the encouragement, prayers, and kind words we can get!         

Tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow is the big day!  The day of the blood test.  I have to go in between 8am and 10am and then they will call me with the results sometime after 1pm.  Out of all the waiting that we have had to do I have a feeling those few hours are going to be the hardest!  I am just praying for a positive result.  Dave has to return to work in the morning.  :-(  So he will not be with me for this step.  Thankfully my friend Stacy is going to spend the day with me so I won't go completely crazy.

I finished up with the antibiotic and prednisone earlier in the week but still have to take the estrace pill and progesterone injection.  The injection has been very difficult for me and is causing me a lot of back pain.  I was supposed to sing at church this morning but I was hurting so badly I could barely stand up. I don't know if it has anything to do with it but last night when Dave was giving me the injection it started bleeding about halfway through the shot.  Maybe that's why I am in so much pain today?  I also have all of these hard lumps or knots under my skin where the injections go that are so painful.  I was not expecting to be hurting this badly but it is going to be worth it in the end!!

So I will post tomorrow as soon as we know the results.  I am asking you all to pray with us for good news tomorrow!  I CAN'T BELIEVE WE FIND OUT TOMORROW IF WE WILL BE HAVING ANOTHER BABY!!!!!  Thank you for reading our blog and following our journey up to this point.  But above all thank you for all of your love, prayers, and support that you have given us.     

He speaks!

So I have yet to write a blog myself and Anne is resting after the transfer, so this is a great opportunity for my first blog post.   I want to first say thank you to all of you who have followed our story and have been so supportive.  Creating this blog has been so inspiring for us as well as some of you.  It is amazing what a little hope and support can do for people.  Now lets get to the good stuff...

Today is Friday the 13th and usually associated with bad omens and such.  I would like to challenge that idea because I know that this day will be nothing but the start of something very special for us and our family.  We got up nice and early to get to the clinic at 7:30 this morning.  The transfer happened around 9-930.  It was actually a really quick and painless process, although I was not the one in the stirrups!  Anne did so well.  As of our last post, we had 4 viable embryos, and this morning we actually had 1 in the best shape and 3 that were slowing down.  So we made the choice to implant 2 total.  Maybe the 2nd one just needs some time in the oven for a jump start, but most likely seems that we will end up with one baby with smaller odds for two and even smaller odds for three or four if they naturally split.  So it is in God's hands to provide us with what will be the best for us.  Anne was a little upset about only having one good embryo, which I understand, but even science cannot change natural selection.  A normal pregnancy has a 20% chance of happening and we ended up with 20% of our 5 embryos, which is 1. But we will have to wait and see what will happen.

Here is an ultrasound after the implantation.  There is a little white spot in the top-middle area inside the sack.  That's the babies.  Pretty cool stuff.  I was in the room with her and I got to watch the whole thing.  Again, very cool stuff.

I know Anne has been really open and honest about her thoughts and emotions through all of this.  So I figure it's my turn to give my side of this difficult journey we have been traveling through.  Having Logan was so amazing.  I look at him now and he kinda blows my mind a little.  He is a little man.  When we lost the first baby, it was really hard on Anne.  It was hard for me as well, but as a male that has no idea what it is like to have a child growing inside of me, I focused my attention on Anne.  I had to be strong for her.  I needed her to be well, not only for her but for me.  I am only as strong as the woman by my side, and she is strong, whether she knows it or admits it.  I will never really grasp what she has suffered through all of this.

The second was obviously difficult as well, but in a very different way.  Having an incompetent, arrogant doctor working with us just made it almost unbearable.  I really almost thought about physically harming this man for what he said to Anne.  For those of you who know me, that tells you how upset I was.  As Anne already posted, he first tried to send us home, and then after we refused and had the surgery, he said to her, "You know I saved your life right?"  Are you Kidding me!  Anyway, so I once again had to attempt to help Anne recover from the physical and emotional scars.

I often had a feeling of helplessness.  Anne has experienced something that I cannot truly comprehend and yet I am supposed to help her heal in some way.  She often asked me why I don't cry about it.  To be honest, I don't know how I didn't.  Maybe because I immediately went into fix-it mode and did whatever I could to help Anne get through this.  When I think back to when Logan was born, I remember it took me a while to really feel like a father and make a connection with him.  I think the bond a mother has with her child that grows inside of her is much more real and it took me time to really get that bond, if I ever really can.  So not having seen or held the lost babies didn't effect me in as intense a way that it has Anne.

So then the third loss happened.  This time we had a great experience, if thats really even possible.  The doctor was great, he listened to us, he was thoughtful, and he ultimately gave us our first bit of hope after yet another tragic loss.  The hardest thing this time was seeing Anne's face as they asked her to sign the paper that she acknowledges she will be sterile after this last surgery.  She was crushed, and so was I.  How can I fix that??  I can't...

After sometime healing we began looking into IVF and Adoption.  I was happy with either.  I know that Anne is an amazing wife, friend, person, and MOTHER.  Whether that child was my blood or not didn't matter to me, I knew that Anne would be amazing and by association I would be amazing as well.  Does that make sense?  She really makes me a better person in all aspects of my life, especially as a father.

So, here we are finishing up the IVF process and the REAL waiting begins.  We go on the 24th for the pregnancy test.  So soon yet so far!  I have to say, this process has been a little one sided for obvious reasons.  Anne has been poked, prodded, taken multiple shots and pills in a day, and all I really had to do was give 3 "samples" in a cup.  I have nothing to complain about!  And somehow in this process, with all the crap Anne is putting herself through, I have seen more joy and hope in my wife than I have in a long time.  If that doesn't tell you how amazing she (and others going through this as well) is I don't know how else to show it.

This is kinda scatter-brained but I think I said what I wanted to say.  We have met some amazing people here in AZ that have really helped and encouraged us as well as those friends and family members back east.  Thank you...

Dave

FRIDAY

We got the news that our implant will be Friday morning at 7:30am!!!!!  We also got the  news that the one embryo that we thought stopped dividing actually caught up to the other three so now we have 4 embryos!  They will still only implant 2-3 embryos but isn't that so amazing?  I am so thankful for things going the way that they have been.  I just pray that it continues to go well and we end up with a positive test.

I have to start one medicine tonight and another tomorrow.  I can't remember the names exactly but I think one is an antibiotic and the other is prednizone?  So now I will be on a thousand medications but it is ok because it is completely worth it!  In 39 hours I will have a baby inside of me.  Something I thought I would never be able to do again.   I can't even put into words how I am feeling right now.  One word I do know is that I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to be going through this when I a year ago I thought that there was no hope.  

The Big Thaw

We have had an exciting few days!  I started my classes with Arizona State University and I should be getting my degree this spring FINALLY!  We went on a mini vacation to Flagstaff and our babies were thawed out!  

We went camping in Flagstaff in a yurt.  It has a very funny name but it is just like a permanent tent.  We chose that place because there is a ban on campfires and charcoal grills and this place offered gas grills.  It was also so much less work which was nice because I was not feeling 100%.  I have been taking the progesterone injections for 4 days now and they are kicking my butt.  But we made the most of our relaxing trip and enjoyed every second of it.  We had planned on going canoeing at Mormon Lake.  I had looked up the website and they offered canoe rentals.  So we drove all the way there (almost an hour from where we were camping) and asked about canoe rentals and they said "You can rent a canoe here but you have to take it to Lake Mary".  Apparently the lake dried up 22 YEARS AGO!  Don't you think that would be an important thing to put on their canoe rental webpage?  So we did not rent a canoe but we did let Logan take a little horse ride.  

Since our activity we planned for the day did not work out so well, we decided to go to Slide Rock State Park.  It was raining off and on and was a little chilly compared to what we were used to but we went anyway.  It was really crowded and overwhelming for Logan.  At first he was so excited to be there but when it came time to get in the water and go on the slides he was not having it.  So Dave and I each went down a few times and he rode on each of our laps once before he had enough.  I think we will wait until he is a little older to try that again.  

When we got back to our campsite we had dinner, went for a short hike at sunset, and then got to come back and listen to two cowboys playing their guitar and banjo and singing around candle light for a group of people.  That was my favorite part of the trip.  

So here is the part everyone is waiting to hear...how many embryos survived the thaw.  As we were driving home today we called the office to find out.  They told us to call after 11am and we did not have service until around 11:30.  My stomach was in knots and Dave was the one calling.  They were busy and had to call us back.  I really think that this whole process has been a way of teaching me patience.  So we waited and waited and finally around 3:00 they called us back.  4 out of 5 survived the thaw, 3 were at a 4 cell stage and one stopped at the 2 cell stage.  So as of today we have 3 embryos that are doing what they are supposed to.  We also still have 5 frozen.  I am praying that the 3 continue to be strong and we can keep the other 5 frozen.  At first I was not sure how to feel that 2 of them didn't make it but I am so thankful that 3 did.  We have to call tomorrow morning after 11am again to find out if the implant will be Thursday or Friday.  If that is the case we will be at day 4 or 5 for the transfer and that is what we want!  Come on day 5!  I still can't believe that we are so close.  It doesn't feel real.  I just want to cry I am so excited/happy/nervous.  I'm sure the hormones aren't helping with that!  :-)  

Less than ONE WEEK!!!!

In less than a week I could be pregnant!!  It has been such a long road to get to this point and I am just bursting with excitement waiting these last few days.  I had two ultrasounds and blood work done this week and everything looks "beautiful, beautiful, beautiful" according to the IVF coordinator.  I finished taking the lupron yesterday and today I start the progesterone.  It is a big shot that dave has to give me in my lower back/hip area.  I will be on the estrace and progesterone until I am 12 weeks pregnant.  I had no idea why I would need to stay on it for so long so I asked on Tuesday.  She explained that the medicine is going to be supporting the pregnancy the way your ovaries normally would.  If I were to get pregnant naturally my body would be supplying all of the hormones.

On Monday they are going to thaw out 5 embryos.  I have to call Tuesday after 11am to find out how many embryos survived the thaw.  They said that if 4 survive that is excellent, if 3 survive that is good.  That will give us an indication if it will be a day 3, 4, or 5 implant.  We are hoping for a day 5 implant when the embryo becomes a blastocyst.  It will also mean that I only have to wait 10 days for the pregnancy test instead of 11 or 12.

Last night Dave and I were talking about the fact that our babies are frozen right now and they are going to be thawed.  It is so mind blowing that our babies are frozen...Think about that for a minute, how crazy is that!  It also blows my mind that depending on which ones they choose to implant will decide if it is a boy or a girl, if they will look like Logan or like us.  (Logan-pale, light hair, and blue eyes.  Us- dark hair, brown eyes, and tan).

I had a dream the other night that we had twin baby girls.  They looked just like Logan with pale skin and big blue eyes.  We took them to visit Tulsi in my dream and even though they were brand new they were crawling all over the place.

I was talking to my friend Stephani the other day.  She is a photographer and I was telling her that I want to get maternity pictures taken when it works.  She said we could start start planning and I said I wanted to wait until after we got the positive test because I didn't want to get ahead of myself.  What she said to me really changed the way I have been thinking about things.  I have been thinking positively and having faith that this will work but have always had this little nagging doubt in my mind.  She said "If you plan ahead and trust that God will provide and that he will do this then you are showing him your faith...."  I can't wait to get those pictures taken!!  :-)