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!