Mock Transfer, SHG, and More

Soooooo, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! {{Please read until the end, specifically the final paragraph}}

I called Empire Plan (my new insurance) to activate my infertility coverage yesterday, and they were closed, CRAP :( I didn't even think about the holiday. So I figured I'd call this morning when they opened on the way to Buffalo IVF for my appointment. Called them and their systems were down, REALLY?! So I called back as I pulled into the parking lot, they looked up my benefits and said my coverage ended August 2013 (that's when we switched to Casey's insurance), I told them I submitted my paperwork for the insurance to kick back in on January 1st. They informed me that they hadn't received anything from my benefits office, I was FREAKING OUT!!

Went into my appointment and informed billing that I was trying to work out insurance and haven't received new cards yet, so hopefully everything will be okay there. Fast forward a couple hours, talked to benefits office and since the option transfer period was until 1/16/15, she was still processing the applications. They sent my insurance application into insurance at 10 am. I called back to Empire and they see that the info was sent but it doesn't show up under benefits until 24 hours later, and of course they're closed over the weekend. So I know what I'll be doing first thing Monday morning. This was the LAST thing I wanted to be stressing over this morning. The regular insurance coverage is retro-active to 1/1/15 but with the infertility coverage, I have to personally call to activate that, and of course couldn't do that without the insurance. So I'm really hoping they'll cover today's appointment. Benefits think they will since I obviously took the necessary steps, but it's still stressful. My hormones are on overdrive and this of course set me over the edge today.

But, let's talk about good stuff. My appointment! Dr. Griffin did my mock embryo transfer and saline sonohysterogram (SHG). First he did the mock transfer, where they insert a catheter completely into my uterus to make sure it's a good environment for an embryo to live. They use an ultrasound to view the catheter and see everything that's going on. He even touched the back of my uterus just to make sure there were no obstacles. He was very happy with what he saw. He said my uterus looked "text book" and a perfect environment for a embryo, very great news! Pregnancy can change things which is why they wanted to do this again. Then he did the SHG where they do a transvaginal ultrasound and basically squirt a bunch of saline in to make sure the uterine lining looks good, make sure there are no cysts, or abnormalities, etc. Again, everything looked great here, YAY! I also learned that when I come in for my monitoring appointments I'll be seeing Dr. Sullivan in January and Dr. Griffin in February. I've worked with Dr. Sullivan since March 2011, he's my main doctor and we've put a lot of trust into him, he's an amazing Doctor so I'm glad I'll be able to work with him during some of my process. Dr. Griffin came into the practice as they released me when I was pregnant, so I've only met him a couple times, but he was really nice today and I'm looking forward to working with him as well.

Finally, I know this is a public blog, but if you are reading this, please no sharing on Facebook or social media sites or even face-to-face. We're wanting to keep this round of IVF a little more private and to ourselves. I've shared this blog with my IVF and mama groups. But anyone else that is reading this, it's because you've come here on your own. People wonder why I would publicly blog if I wanted this kept quiet, it's because it helps me a TON to blog about the process. It's VERY therapeutic for me. Plus, I don't want to forget anything. So please respect our privacy. I would love for everyone to continue reading and follow our process. We appreciate any prayers and support we can get. You will get all necessary updates here as well. So refer to this blog for questions :D Thanks again for respecting us!

The Official Start of my IVF Cycle

Ahhhh the time has come, it's the OFFICIAL start of my upcoming IVF cycle. What starts the cycle, you ask? Birth control pills!! Hahaha, so funny, right? Did you know that a typical IVF cycle is 6 weeks?! Gosh that feels like such a long time haha, I kind of just want to fast forward ahead to February! LOL. No, it's all worth it of course :D So I started my pack of birth control pills tonight and have received my official calendar.

The course of events is as follows:
12/27 -- Start birth control pills
1/1 -- Call insurance to activate IVF coverage
1/2 -- Mock transfer
1/12 -- Start Lupron (1st injectible medicine)
1/16 -- Last active birth control pill
1/19 -- Baseline blood work and ultrasound
1/23 -- Start the injectible medicine to stimulate my ovaries to grow follices (Follistim)
1/26 -- Blood work to check estradiol levels
Week of 1/26 -- more blood work & ultrasounds
Week of 2/2 -- more blood work & ultrasounds; then when my follicles are the appropriate size we will stimulate ovulation (ovidrel) then have the egg retrieval!
5-7 days after egg retrieval is the embryo transfer -- the plan is to transfer 2 embryos
Then we WAIT! AHHHH!!!

I'm really excited but I'm also super nervous as well. We've never had many great embryos in the past so this makes me nervous, all it takes is one though (Hello, Mr Hank <3)!! So hoping for more embryos this time, would even be nice to have some to freeze. IVF is a very emotional process, so I'm not really looking forward to that. And last time I didn't have a toddler running around keeping me busy too so I'm sure I'm going to be extra tired. I always make sure to schedule the earliest appointments so I can get back to work so I don't have to use any time. So that means leaving my house around 6 am (yuck!). So that'll be hectic with daycare and what not too. Normally I take Hank to daycare at 8 am, but Casey will have to take him before he goes to work on days that I have monitoring up in Buffalo, so he'll have to go at probably 7:15 am to give Casey time to get to work. So I think we'll all be tired for that couple of weeks there! Keeping the end goal in sight will definitely help us all! I am so excited to hopefully give Hank a little brother or sister!! :D Keep us in your thoughts & prayers please over the next 2 months, we will really appreciate it!!

Let's do this!!

Started my birth control pills tonight!! This is the reminder that pops up in my phone, gotta make it fun!! :) Hoping they don't mess with my hormones too much. And maybe they'll even help my acne a little bit, that would be nice!! I'll be taking these for the next 1-2 months so we have control over my cycles, since they're so wonky we don't know what it'll do. So BCP it is!! Wish me luck :)

The Beginning All Over Again

Well I figured that blogging helped me so much the first two times I did IVF that I might as well do it again, I still look back on those posts or reference them or send them to people that need help or have questions. It's like a personal journal for me that I'll forever have, so I've decided why not. I'm writing this for me. I have a hard time remembering things. I probably should've done this for Hank's first year, oops! :/

Okay, sooooooo here's the dealio! Casey & I have wanted another baby for a long time. We love Hank so much we want him to have a sibling, he plays sooooo good with other kids, it's amazing! He's seriously going to be the best big brother. We decided, let's not wait around and at least TRY on our own because what does it hurt. Well 15 months later, and still nothing. It's funny after going through all the infertility procedures I went through and only ever getting pregnant via IVF that I would even have any hoping of getting pregnant naturally. But it's there, and I cannot help it. Getting AF month after month sucks!! It was regular for awhile which was nice, thought maybe my body was kicking itself into gear, then I'd be late, get hopeful (OMG I'm pregnant), then NOPE, hello AF! You son-of-a-bitch! I hate YOU!! Anyways......

We've been on Casey's health insurance for a year now (they don't cover IVF) and I knew they didn't. We decided to go on his insurance to get a bit of a monetary break and since I was nursing, I didn't want the thought of doing IVF jeopardize that. So we knew we could not do IVF while on Casey's insurance. Guess what?! I'll be going back on my insurance as of January 1, so we can do IVF again.

I setup a meeting with Dr. Sullivan up at Buffalo IVF a few weeks ago. It was a family outing for us. He got to visit with Hank, we got to see our favorites up there & they got to see how much Hank has grown and see one of their miracle babies! We love visiting them! They're like a family to us. We went there for 2.5 years before they released us! Anyways, Dr. Sullivan decided we know what worked to get us Hank, so let's do that again! Yay! :D

So we're in the EARLY stages of preparing my body for IVF. I know the next 5 weeks are going to fly by, so I'm very thankful for that. First, Dr. Sullivan started me on metformin again, ahh my old nemesis. I was on metformin for YEARS. It's given to women with PCOS to help regulate your cycles essentially. Metformin is known to TEAR UP my stomach (and most women's stomachs who take it). So they have you ease into the drug. Start taking it very slowly. I took it with dinner on a Friday night and it was within 30 minutes that my body was like WTF!!! Ugh, great, this again!! Thankfully, as I've been increase the prescription and up to the full dose now it's really not too bad. I have to make sure I take it on a full stomach in the mornings, or I feel like I'm going to puke, learned that lesson a couple weeks ago. And taking it right before bed after I've eaten dinner works for the night time dose. I have to be careful what I eat specifically around taking it, which is a good thing. Sometimes during the day too, that's more of a guessing game. Good excuse not to carb-load or eat greasy! Which I shouldn't be doing any ways! Haha!

Next step was to wait for AF, theoretically she shouldn't arrived around November 10th, of course not though haha. Buffalo wanted me to call up on November 17th either way, so I called, the nurse says give it one more week (since we aren't in any rush here). So after more than 2 weeks late, it arrived with a VENGEANCE on November 23rd. So I got blood work this morning, November 24th, down at Brooks. Had 7 vials of blood taken and had the best phlebotomist thank goodness!! I love when they actually listen to me when I tell them I need a butterfly needle because it was painless!!

So now the next step is waiting to hear back from Buffalo IVF about how the labs look and when I'll start the birth control. This part always makes me laugh. Going on birth control before doing IVF, doesn't that sound like an oxymoron? We need to do this so we can get my body "normal" and this way we can control when to do certain things. So I'll be on that until sometime in January.

Next things we have to do are: blood work for Casey and a sperm-analysis, which I know he's greatly looking forward to both of these haha!! Then WAIT for the NEW YEAR!!!!!! Ahhh I'm so excited!! I seriously cannot wait to give Hank a sibling :D

Oh one more thing to add, in the myst of all of this, I've had to wean Hank. I know, I know, we went WAY longer than anticipated, expected, etc. and he's only been nursing 1x/day for months, but I really loved those few minutes in the morning with him before he started tearing ass around the house haha!! I decided the last time I would nurse Hank would be his 18 month birthday (mean Mommy haha), I truly treasured that last time, more so even because I knew (or planned) it would be the last time. I just changed up the morning routine and he never once asked for it. And I'm so excited that I never even felt a thing either! I'm telling you, THAT is the way to wean!! So thankful I didn't have to go through that pain! :D

Sooooooo, that is what is going on :D So stay tuned!!

Twas the Night Before Egg Retrieval

Twas the Night Before Egg Retrieval...

Tomorrow is my egg retrieval and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. I'm just as nervous this time, if not more nervous, than I was last time. I also never imagined I'd be doing this again so soon as in my mind, I should be 6 months pregnant right. However, I'm not, so here I am going through all this to TRY to get my baby. 

Last night at 8:30 pm, I triggered ovulation with Ovidrel. I bled a little, no big deal. After the shot, it instantly became real and I started worrying...did I do that shot right?! Of course I did, it's really the only shot you CANNOT mess up! It's a pre-filled syringe, you stick it in and inject the solution. That's it, nothing you can mess up. Okay, so ovulation will now occur 36 hours later...how does it know to ovulate me 36 hours later? I've always wondered that, what if it ovulates sooner? This is what starts running through my head and this is just the beginning. 

Today I've been pretty nervous about tomorrow. The unexpectedness of last cycle started coming into my head which leads to the unexpected of this cycle. Last time, we expected to get 12 eggs, only got 7, only 3 fertilized, only 1 was viable which led to a 2 day transfer. It did lead to a pregnancy, so I know it only takes one, but that was the scariest thing to go through all the drugs, all the ultrasounds, all the injections and wondering if I would even make it to embryo transfer. I know where the nerves come from, I'm sure it happens to everyone but knowing what can happen, some don't even make it to embryo transfer, that's what makes me so nervous.

It's the "unknown," I wish I could some how know exactly what was going to happen. So here I am, figured I'd write a quick post before I relax for the rest of the night. Casey and I went to Bob Evans (haha we act like we're 60 years old at times) and it was damn good! I took my doxycyline and so far it hasn't made me feel like shit, and I've used the (TMI!!) medicated douche my doctor told me to use (EWW I feel so violated right now haha), but I'll do whatever I need to do. 

Here's what this cycle has consisted of: 

• 1 Mock Embryo Transfer
• 21 days of birth control pills
• 23 days of the Lupron injection
• 12 days of Follistim (FSH) injection & SolX (LH) injection
• 1 Ovidrel ovulation shot
• 9 trips to Buffalo IVF at 52 miles each way
• 8 blood work draws
• 6 vaginal ultrasounds

In case you didn't know, that's what it takes just to get to tomorrow, egg retrieval. There is so much invested and now I enter the world of the unknown. How many eggs will they retrieve? How will I feel? Will I be in much pain after? Will the IV hurt going on? How many eggs will fertilize? How will the quality be of the embryos? How many embryos will make it to transfer day? WILL THIS WORK?!

Please be thinking and praying for us tomorrow and going forward for hopefully the next 9 months! <3

Lupron Shot Video

I decided to video a "how-to" tonight of myself doing my Lupron shot! I love documenting stuff. I've never done a video of my infertility process, so I figured, why not?! So here's the video! Ohh and if you're doing this, make sure you're careful in putting the cap back on the needle when you're done! The needle poked through tonight because I was moving too fast and it "bit" my finger! Ouch! A finger prick is much worse than any shot!! You'll see my ouch face right before the video shuts off! Haha 

Positive aspects of being "infertile"

I saw this one of my facebook groups and had to repost to my blog!


So what if your uterus’ isn’t behaving! Who cares if your husband’s sperm has more tails than a dog! It doesn’t matter if you’re tubes have no idea how to fallop! Don’t feel sorry for us! There are lots of positive aspects to being an infertile such as….

(1) No awkward sex talk to your future children! Explaining the birds and the bees to our children will be fun! “Little Tommy, when a mommy and a daddy love each other they drive to a fertility clinic and 4 years later, you are conceived with a lot of love and a little test tube.” 

(2) By the time you are pregnant, your friends are already finished having kids. You can borrow all their baby stuff (even if they are stained with poop and vomit).

(3) During IVF or IUI, your partner doesn’t even have to be present during conception! Just send him a quick text once it’s done. “Honey, we did it! How was it for you?”

(4) When you go to sleep at night, you still get to sleep through the night.

(5) You get to cry about infertility in random places. Why go to a boring old grocery store if you’re just going to shop. Yawn. Boring. Having a emotional breakdown in the tampon aisle, now that’s interesting!

(6) Your friends all offer to let you have their bratty kids. Great! So don’t be surprised and call the police when you take them. You had a verbal agreement.

(7) When you’re quintuplets arrive, you might get your own television show called IVF Mama Plus Five!

(8) You get to have surgery to help improve your fertility…. The positive side? The hospital offers these delicious pudding cups for lunch! Lip-smacking!

(9) Your friend have stretch marks, sagging breasts and wrinkles. You only have weight gain and acne due to fertility medication.

(10) Whoever said infertility was awful obviously never met your hot fertility doctor! He can inseminate you anytime!

Even if it doesn’t always feel this way and you think you will never get pregnant, infertility is most likely temporary. But hope and determination are permanent.

This article was taken from 999 Reasons to Laugh at Infertility. This is a REALLY great website about all things infertility, it really does help one look at things differently.

<3

July 15, 2012

I forgot I wanted to make a post on here on Sunday and I forgot. I updated my Facebook, but since not everyone is on there, I wanted to share my status:


"Exactly 2 years ago today, Casey & I decided we would start a family. Little did we know we'd be here 24 months later childless after driving thousands of miles back & forth to buffalo, spending (idk how much) $, injecting myself with countless amounts of drugs, having prolly close to 100 ultrasounds & more bloodwork drawn than most have in their life, going under anesthesia 3 times, having many procedures & having an angel baby! Wow it's been a tough 2 years but we will prevail & have the child we deserve! I have the best husband for sticking by my side & being my rock thru thick & thin! ♥" 


Two years or 24 months is a long time - I've known people who have gotten pregnant and had 2 children during this time period! I never would've guessed that on July 15, 2010, it would have come to what it is today. No one could've prepared me for everything I would go through. Most people really have no idea what is involved with infertility. All the appointments, all the drugs, all the "poking and proding," it's just crazy. I put on 100 miles each trip I take to Buffalo, and I couldn't tell you how many appointments I've had up there. Each "easy" cycle was at least 5 times, my previous IVF cycle was at least 10 times. Crazy. Not much else I can say but crazy! Anyways, I'm hoping this is nearing the end of trying for our child. I really hope our next IVF cycle gets a happy, healthy baby in our arms. <3

Lupron Shot Day #6

Shots have gone in fine thus far...but tonight the needle went in hard, hurt when I pulled it out & bruised & swelled up within a few minutes! Ouch!

Beginning of Ivf cycle

This is what the beginning of an Ivf cycle looks like, birth control and baby aspirin!

The Road to IVF

So we had our consultation with Dr. Sullivan on Thursday (1/12), it went really good but of course I always think of one million questions after I meet. Anyways, I found this really great website that explains the whole IVF process from me starting a new cycle to hopefully finding out that it worked. The article is called Understanding IVF Treatment Step by Step. It's helped me understand things a little better but I think I still need to make a phone call to talk to the IVF nurse to answer a few more questions.

Our percentage of IVF working is even greater than IUI, so I really hope it is successful...IVF is going to be the beginning of an end of an era for us, whether it works or not. I am of course still very hopeful that I'll be able to have my own children. One of the things we took from the meeting was that our percentage of having twins is now 50%!! This is super exciting for us. Within days of dating, Casey and I both talked about wanting twins. It's just something we've both always wanted. So maybe the reason we have to go through all of this is to get our twins...who knows. Of course we would be ecstatic to get one baby, but we'll be excited if we get two as well! Anyways, after all the scientific talk and what drugs I'll be taking and what not, Dr. S. talked about how well I've responded to the Follistim in the past (ie the reason we had to cancel the current cycle - I responded too well for IUI), so he thinks he'll be able to get 10 good oocytes out of me and about 70% will likely become embryo's. Dr. S. will transfer 2 embryo's into my uterus. This could leave 5 healthy embryo's leftover which will be frozen for possible future use. So if this IVF doesn't work or if we decide to have more children in the future, we don't have to go through all the hassle we've gone through this time. I would just have my body "tricked" again then when the time is right, embryo's would be transferred in. If we decide not to use them, we can have them destroyed, can give them to someone else we identify within the practice (huge hassle though as he pointed out, plus I don't know if I could let someone else have "our children"), or they can be donated to research which would be ideal for us if we don't use them.

Once I start my new cycle, I'll get started on birth control and then Lupron to trick my pituitary gland. Essentially, the doctor will have total control over my reproductive system. The meds he gives me tells my body what to do and when. Pretty crazy how we can take control over our bodies! Then I'll be back on Follistim and a new drug for me called Ganirelix. Then once Dr says it's time, I'll take the Ovidrel shot and have the egg retrieval done 36 hours later!! I'll get an IV of "Michael Jackson's favorite drug" Propofol (don't worry, it's a very safe form of an anesthetic when given safely and as prescribed) to put me to "sleep" while they retrieve the eggs. I'll then add another drug in there after retrieval (can't remember the name of that one right now)...this is a lot to remember!! Lol. Then, 3 days after egg retrieval, he will transfer 2 embryo's into my uterus. So after the embryo's are transferred, I will start the daily Progesterone (brand name endometrin) and have the dreaded two week wait to see if it worked. So stay tuned, this is a fairly long process. So that's what IVF is in a nutshell, the link above probably does a better job at explaining it than I have, but that's where we're at...

To end, in 7 days and 10 hours, we will be on that big bird to Las Vegas!! :-)

An Emotional Roller Coaster

Wow, this week (only 3 days in) has been one emotional roller coaster that I certainly was not expecting!

Let's start with Sunday morning. I had an ultrasound (Day 13) to take a look at my ovaries to see how they were looking. Well the nurse starts on my right ovary, there are so many follicles in there, so she begins counting and measuring. After about 10 minutes of looking around on the right side, she goes to my left side, there are probably just as many on my left side. After another 10 minutes, and multiple pictures later, we are done with the ultrasound. I didn't get an exact count on how many follicles I have but it's easy from 15-20, ranging in all different sizes. Lately, I've had at most 5-6 follicles total. The one other time I had a lot of follicles, the doctor made the call to cancel my cycle to avoid Hyperstimulation. I feared this would happen again this cycle, but would have to wait and hear what my instructions were on the nightly tape (which I can listen to usually after 4:30 pm). The tape indicated to stop taking the Follistim and to come in Monday morning for bloodwork and ultrasound.

To move onto Monday morning, my ultrasound was scheduled to be at 7:15 am. I got called back by my "favorite" nurse (not really) because I forgot to ask for someone else. She begins looking at my ovaries via ultrasound. She is astonished at how many follicles I have, she saw I had many in my paperwork, but definitely was a shocker seeing it for herself. This ultrasound was very uncomfortable as it lasted about 30 minutes between the two sides. My ovaries are already feeling "full" and the added pressure does not help. In case you didn't know, all of my ultrasounds are done vaginally. So yeah, 30 minutes...not so pleasant! While in there, she takes lots of pictures of all the Follicles and doesn't even measure them, she's just concentrating on getting pictures of all of them. So when we're done, I go get my bloodwork done and wait to meet with the Doctor. It's usually not good when you have to meet with the Doctor at the spur of the moment. While I'm waiting, she's manually measuring the follicles from the pictures she's printed. I have a couple large follicles and the rest of them are smaller but growing.

Dr. Sullivan comes into the room and tells me that we basically have two options, pending where my estrogen level is at, which I'd know later in the day when the bloodwork results came back in. My two options were to stop the cycle because of too many follicles, or the other option was to convert this cycle to an IVF cycle. Since IVF is my next route anyways, we decided we'd go ahead with the IVF cycle as long as my estrogen level looks good. Around Noon I got a phone call from the IVF nurse, Kathy. She said we can go ahead with the IVF cycle. At this point, I'm excited but nervous at the same time, it was hard to wrap my head around all of a sudden doing IVF. Anyways, she explains that I'll need to take Follistim again that night and a new injectable drug called Ganirelix which even after reading about I'm still not 100% sure what it does. Unfortunately, I could not find this drug anywhere in our area, so I'd need to pick it up at the Doctors office in Snyder. So I called up my Dad to see if he could drive up there to get it for me, what a huge weight off my shoulders it was for him to go get that for me! Kathy continued to say that I would need to come up Tuesday morning for bloodwork and an ultrasound performed by Dr. Sullivan himself. So at this point, I'm excited about doing IVF right now and doing something unexpected at the time, hoping maybe it was a "sign" or something...

Tuesday morning, Casey goes up to the doctors with me. I walked in and had my bloodwork then went back for my Ultrasound. Dr. Sullivan started on my left ovary and started measuring. He sees lots of follicles, but noticed they didn't grow like he was expecting. Since they had me stop taking my Follistim Sunday night, that possibly backtracked me. When it was stopped, that was because my estrogen was high and IVF wasn't in the picture at that point. He continued onto the right side and saw the same thing, lots of follicles but not the expected growth. So now I'm bummed. I was all geared up to do IVF this week, and now everything this cycle might have been for nothing. All the shots, medications, bloodwork, trips to Buffalo, the emotional exhaustion...possibly could have gotten me absolutely no where. However, I do have to wait on the results of my Estrogen to see how that looks. If it's where they want, they'll look at me again tomorrow and make a decision. If it's dropped then the cycle comes to a halt and wait for the next cycle to begin...so I'm sitting here crossing my fingers, toes, legs, arms waiting for a phone call...

Welp, I just got the phone call from Kathy that we won't go forward with this cycle. I feel crushed. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up. I'm not mad, I know it's for the right reason, I'm sad and emotionally exhausted. I know I have good things to look forward to though. We are having our IVF consultation on Thursday afternoon as planned. I'll learn more about it and what they do and get prepared for the next cycle. So I'll definitely have something new to look forward to. I'll still take the Ovidrel shot on Thursday evening to push my body into Ovulation so we can move forward. So that's what's happened the last 3 days. I'm spent. I cannot wait for our Vegas vacation!! I need it more than ever. Counting down, only 11 more days until we're there!! :-)

The Invisible Pain

So I'm going to do a quick lunch post based off an article I came across on Facebook. The Invisible Pain of Infertility is the article that is on Redbook.com, and I found it very refreshing to read. Most of you probably didn't know about me suffering with infertility until a couple weeks ago. Only some close family and friends knew. Since I wrote my first post to just get it out there, I've received tremendous support and it feels good to not feel like I'm hiding everything I'm going through on a daily basis. There were a few lines I just wanted to quote about this article that really hit home for me, and that's about it.

• Infertility can be devastating, and it's time we openly acknowledged that. 
• Everyone has the right to privacy, of course, but that secrecy has left so many women to cope alone, in pain, and often uninformed
• When women dealing with infertility can communicate with others in their situation, they get through it in a much better state of mind and also share needed information about their options
• Even when they find a community online, the exchanges are largely anonymous; in real life, they are typically silent
• Twelve percent of reproductive-age American women — about 7.3 million — are having trouble conceiving or carrying a baby to term (that's about 1 in 8 women)
• One reason infertility is considered hush-hush is that it's wrapped up in sex, a subject Americans are notoriously squirmy about. "If you start discussing infertility, you have to talk about ovaries and semen and all kinds of things you don't usually discuss over dinner"

P.S. I'm back to work today. My back is sore, this is the longest I've sat upright in the last 4 days and I am still tired, but other than that I'm doing okay! My belly button is almost completely healed up, and my other incision looks good, it's healing well and the swelling is decreasing. Have a great day, everyone! :-)

Almost 12 hours after surgery

I figured I'd do a quick post from my phone. Surgery scheduled on time today at 10 am and lasted about an hr. The dr made the 2 incisions, one in belly button, other around bikini line. The belly button incision is a little sore, I can barely fill the other. The rest of me feels like I got in a car wreck. My ribs, neck, shoulders & back are very sore, I was warned this would happen though, Casey was nice enough to get me a heat pad which has helped. I did have to have a breathing tube so my throat is VERY sore, feels like I left with strep! Ugh! Anyways, the dr found some endometriosis and zapped it away, so hopefully that will do the trick, fingers crossed. I have my post-op with him on Thursday so I'll find out exactly what's next then. Casey took that picture during recovery, I was definitely feeling better then than now! I think I'm about to take a hydro and hit the sack! Thanks again for everyones thoughts and prayers! <3

Less than 12 hours until Surgery

So I figured I'd do a quick post before bed (we'll see how quick it really is)! I'm definitely nervous for tomorrow, and getting really tired, so I'm really hoping I sleep good tonight. I know the surgery is considered "minimally invasive" but it's still surgery, I'm going under anesthesia, and getting cut open, therefore, scary! I met with Dr. Sullivan on Monday and he went over the surgery with me. I'm having a Laparoscopy and Hysteroscopy (sp?) (I don't feel like creating links tonight, so look it up yourself if you want!). After I am put under of course, he will make the first incision in my belly button. This first incision is critical as they are going in blind with this incision, if they hit an organ, the small incision will quickly become a large incision, so hopefully everything goes as planned. The second incision will be about 4 incisions lower in my pelvic area. They will then begin exploring my reproductive organs with the laparoscope. He is looking for endometriosis, scar tissue, fibroids, anything that could help explain why I have been unsuccessful in becoming pregnant. I'm hoping that he finds something that can be fixed then and there. A third incision will only be necessary if he finds something that he cannot easily get to. The other part of the surgery is the Hysteroscopy where they will look into my Uterus to see if they find anything in there as well, they will look in here with a small camera as well. Pretty amazing what technology can do. The surgery takes normally around 1 hr, but that of course will depend on if he finds something, what it is, etc. Along the way he will be taking pictures which Casey & I will get to see after surgery. So that's pretty much it for right now. I have to be at Sister's Hospital at 8:00 am, for surgery at 10:00 am. Hopefully I'll be released by mid-afternoon so we don't hit any Sabres traffic!! I know many people want to know what the Dr finds (or doesn't), so I promise you that you'll know, but don't be mad if you don't get a text/phone call tomorrow, I'm sure I'll be pretty out of it and sore. Anyway, I'd appreciate any thoughts and prayers around 10:00 am tomorrow morning. Have a good night :-)

What I have been through since July 15, 2010

So, my original purpose for starting a blog was documenting what I was going through while pregnant. I have yet to become pregnant, and it just occurred to me that I could blog what I'm going through while trying to become pregnant. If/when I ever do become pregnant, I know it will be nice to have this blog to look back on to reflect what I went through, and possibly for my child to read one day to see what I had to go through to have them.

On July 15, 2010, Casey and I decided to start trying for a baby. At this time, I was working as a tax accountant, so we decided we would start trying once tax season would be over if I were to get pregnant at that time. So I started my cycle not long after that. At this point in time, my cycles were quite long, approximately 40 days. I had been keeping track of my cycles using an app on my iPod, so it calculated when I should be ovulating and when I should get my period. Well I was due for my period while vacationing in OBX, so I brought pregnancy tests with me, I thought how cool would it be to find out I'm pregnant while on vacation...that was my first negative pregnancy test in this journey.

To back track a few years...back in 2007, my cycles started getting longer and longer, and I was straight-up skipping periods, I was not on birth control because it never reacted well with my body. I decided I should look into this since I knew it was not right, I went close to 3 months without a period. I started going to a doctor who started testing me for everything! I had so many blood tests run, and had ultrasounds, everything! By a process of elimination, the doctor said I have PCOS. I do not "look" PCOS --> most women with it are overweight, have excessive body hair, and many other qualities you can see. The only thing the doctor could "see" were more than normal cysts on my ovaries, so they say this is what I have. Many people never have problems getting pregnant with this, and many people do. The doctor started me on a medication called Metformin. This medication has helped me have a more "normal" cycle. I've been on this medicine every since, and last fall my dosage was increased, I have to take 2 pills every morning and 2 when I go to sleep.

Back to reality, I started going to a Gyno in September, 2010. She saw all of my past information, had me do tons of blood tests and instead of wasting time, she decided to start me on your "basic" infertility medicine. This medicine is called Clomid. I take it for cycle days 3-7, then normally around day 14 which is about when one should ovulate, I'd go into the doctor's office for an ultrasound of my ovaries. At this time, they would look at both ovaries, and measure the size of the growing follicles which in turn release the egg. It didn't look great for the first cycle on Clomid. So we decided to try it again for my next 4 cycles (it's only safe to take for a total of 6 cycles). Unfortunately, I was not responding to Clomid like they had expected, so my next step was to see an infertility doctor.

On March 1, 2011, Casey and I had our first meeting with Dr. Sullivan at Buffalo IVF. He asked us a bunch of questions, looked at all of our past history, and decided to start me on a fertility medicine that women normally respond to if they don't respond to Clomid. This is also the day that we found out that Hopper was doing very bad, the cancer was eating him from the inside out. As we were taking the next steps to welcome (hopefully) a new life into this world, we had to make the decision to put Hopper down the next day (P.S. I'm crying right now as I'm writing this, just thinking about this, we loved him so much!). Before Dr. Sullivan started me on anything, he wanted to make sure that my tubes were clear and looked good, so I had to have a procedure done called an HSG (or dye) test, where a catheter is inserted into the Uterus and then dye is flushed through the tubes to check for any blockages, which I had none, so good news. P.S. Having a catheter inserted into the Uterus hurts like hell, it feels like a contraction, the Uterus does not like things inserted into it!

Okay, so the new med that Dr. Sullivan started me on is called Femara, it's actually used to treat breast cancer in women, but is used highly by infertility doctors. I started on Femara in April after a long March cycle. Femara is an oral medication, taken like Clomid, days 3-7. After an unsuccessful cycle on this, we decided to introduce the next step, which is getting an IUI (or intrauterine insemination or artificial insemination).

I took the Femara on days 3-7, then I started getting my ovaries/follicles measured by ultrasound on Day 10, and continued until they reached a certain size. For my first insemination, I had a follicle that measured 21 mm, which is a good size for insemination. Being this size means, it should be ready to be released and I will ovulate (hopefully). I decided to take an at-home pregnancy test 2 weeks after that, which was negative. So after yet another unsuccessful cycle, we decided to introduce one more thing that should help.

In June, I took the Femara on days 3-7, started getting my ovaries/follicles measured around Day 10, and on Day 13 I took the new drug, Ovidrel. Ovidrel is given by shot in the abdominal area (no it doesn't hurt). This is done at home around 8 pm, then 36 hours later, an IUI is done at the doctor's office. When I first found out I'd have to take a shot, it made me nervous, but then I wondered how I was going to get this shot. I did not think Casey could give it to me because he HATES shots, needles, bloodwork, all that. I mentioned to him about contacting a nurse friend and he said "I can give it to you," he doesn't have a problem administering shots, he just doesn't like to receive them. So, he gave me my Ovidrel shot which induces/pinpoints ovulation, and then I had my IUI on Day 15. In case you are wondering, the IUI does not in any way replace Sex! It's just another way that could assist in getting pregnant because the sperm is injected directly into uterus, and doesn't have to travel. P.S. Casey has "super sperm," so in case you were wondering again, I am the only problem, thankfully he is not. I think he could look at someone and knock them up with how many active sperm he has! Haha! Continuing on, on June 26, my 25th birthday, I work up with my period. I was absolutely devastated. I always thought I would have at least one child by the time I turned 25, and to find out yet again that I was not pregnant, was horrible.

So, we decided to do another cycle just like the last one, Femara, Ovidrel and IUI, my follicles didn't really grow very big on this cycle and there were only about 2 that were growing, but it only takes 1 to get pregnant. In the meantime, I met with Dr Sullivan to discuss what came next if this were to not work. Which as you can imagine, it did not.

So, here's what came next. Instead of taking an oral fertility medication, I would now only do injectibles. The medicine that the doctor put me on was Follistim. Follistim carries many benefits, but it also carries many risks. It's beneficial in that it grows the follicles faster, and bigger and people typically respond better to this if they didn't respond as well to the orals. Some of the risks are, our chance of multiples has now doubled, and hyper/over-stimulation can occur where in the most extreme cases, the ovaries blow up like balloons and if they become too full, they can burst! Eeekk! Follistim is administered via a pen. Every time a new shot is given, a new needle is attached and there is a dial that is adjusted to how much of the medicine the doctor wants the patient to have. Ohh and being on Follistim, the doctors monitor the patient much more closely via bloodwork and ultrasound every couple days. On Day 3, Follistim was started. This cycle, I drove to Buffalo 6 times which is approximately 120 miles each time. On Day 10, after I had been in for bloodwork that morning. I got a phone call from the Doctor (which the Nurses always make the calls, so I knew it had to be bad). He indicated that my estrogen had more than doubled since the previous day and that I was on the verge of being over-stimulated, so the cycle had to come to a halt! He specifically told me to "stay away from that husband of yours" because it'd be too dangerous to pursue the cycle. I had way too many follicles, which can result in way too many babies.

A very strange thing happened next, 7 days later on what would be cycle day 17, I began my cycle. Now I'm used to having cycles around 32 days, this was practically half that. I went in for my Day 3 ultrasound, and the nurse said I "have crazy ovaries going on" which is not something the doctors want to see on a day 3, on day 3, your ovaries should be nice and quiet. Another downside of the Follistim, the old follicles like to stick around from the previous cycle, we only want fresh new follicles for a new cycle. So, cure for this...take birth control for 2 weeks. Wait, now I've been trying to get pregnant now for over a year, and now I have to take birth control?! Not cool!! Well I did, so I was blessed with another period 18 days later.

Since I reacted "too well" by developing so many follicles after the Follistim last cycle, the doctor's decided to do a hybrid cycle basically. I go back to taking the Femara for days 3-7 to get the follicles growing, then on Day 7 I begin taking lower dosages of Follistim, while continuing to be monitored every couple of days to see how things are looking. By adding the Follistim to the Femara, the Follistim picks the couple growing follicles and grows them even bigger than they could grow with only Femara. On Day 15, they had me do the Ovidrel shot (which I did for the first time ever myself because I had to take the shot while I was at a Tupperware party, I'm really proud of myself for being able to do this). Then on Day 17, I had the IUI. I woke up that morning feeling like my stomach hurt. Well I get up to the doctor's office and the nurse asks how I'm feeling and I tell her about my little belly ache and she tells me those are my ovaries telling me they're "full" and ready for ovulation! Wow best belly ache ever! This was a great sign, I was so excited because I'd never felt this before. Before the IUI was done, an ultrasound is always done to look at the ovaries, and they looked great, best cycle I'd had thus far!

Well, all of a sudden last Sunday, October 2nd, I got crampy and started my cycle. This was very hard on me. I'm always hoping for the best but expecting the worst, but this time things were different. I reacted very well to the meds, I got the ovary ache, nurses were so hopeful...so it was so hard starting that cycle.

One of the options discussed in July was if the Follistim didn't work, then he wanted to do surgery. At this point, it's unexplained to the doctor why I can't get pregnant. I've had "help" for the majority of my cycles over the last year, and have tried lots of different things, on top of that I'm healthy, so in his eyes, I should have gotten pregnant by now.

So, next Friday October 14th, I'm having a Laparoscopy where a tiny camera will be inserted into my abdomen which will then will be used to look at my reproductive system. The doctor will be looking for scar tissue, endometriosis, anything that could suggest why I haven't gotten pregnant. If he finds nothing, I'm not sure what's next. If he does find something, it'll obviously depend on what he finds. This is considered to be a minimally invasive surgery, but it's still surgery, I have to have pre-op testing and be put under anesthesia. Casey will take off of work to bring me and I will probably be laid up all weekend, hopefully no more, but everyone handles things differently, the scarring with this should also be minimal.

So that's everything I can think of at 10:00pm on a Friday night (posted Saturday night because my computer decided to act up), this basically explains what Casey and I have been through over the last 15 months. It saddens me to see other people get pregnant. I'm happy for them, but at the same time I always wonder, why can't that be me? I do have Baby Envy and get sad a lot. There are many times where I feel like I'm failing. I feel like I've taken the right path in life, I have a Master's degree, a great job with amazing benefits, a supportive husband, I own my home, I feel we're financially ready for a child and yet I can't do the thing I'm supposed to do. As this goes on and on, I become more and more open because it does help to talk about it. I've found people to talk to and it has definitely helped me more. Anyways, that's it for now, I know it's long but oh well, my story is long. And now I'm going to bed to cuddle with my wonderful, supportive husband. Good night <3