Back on the Wagon

It's been four years.

No baby.  But, we do have a nice home, and Dov is halfway through trade school.  Our finances are getting on track and we're in a good place.

I saw an endocrinologist yesterday.  We have a plan.  The blood tests yesterday.  I have to spit at midnight for a different test. (Sadly, not the weirdest thing I've done in pursuit of a baby...)

Here we go again.

Please hold. Your baby will be attempted shortly..."

It has been awhile since I posted. Thank you for your prayers for me over the past six months. I'm not 100% yet, but I made it through Mother's Day without crying...progress!

I saw SRM again on my 39th birthday, and we discussed the plan. We were going to attempt a fallopian tube flush and IUI in May, but my cycles have been erratic, and due to the depression I was in, I gained 16 pounds.

I re-joined Weight Watchers and have, so far, lost 4 of those extra pounds. We'll probably attempt the IUI in the Fall, when the weight is down at a range where there's a higher chance of success.

The bad news is that, due to my age, the doctor is limiting me to two more IUI's and then we have to move to IVF.

My dreams of having my child yell "I wish I was never artificially created in a lab!" might come true after all! :)

What happens when you can't get past stage 2?

I'm having a hard time keeping a brave face in the midst of our pain.

People ask me how I'm doing and I say fine, but the tears immediately start welling up and I have to change the subject.

It's not even like a miscarriage - we weren't pregnant at all, but the sense of loss is still there. It was the potential. Am I being silly?

Now, a new year is again ahead of us, and my nutritionist is emailing me to set up an appointment, but I cannot bring myself to answer her.

I cry when I'm alone, because I don't want my husband to worry. But I know he does anyway. He keeps trying to cheer me up, and I love him for it, but it stings.

At the end of the day, its just him and me. And the dogs...

I just feel very empty...and it sucks.

If at first you don't succeed - skydiving is not for you!

No baby.

I knew I was in the 10% success rate group, so I suppose I shouldn't have been as distraught as I was...but I cried for a good half hour Friday morning when my period started.

I took a pregnancy test on Saturday just in case, but it was negative. As I knew it would be.

Dov took me to the movies Friday afternoon. The first preview was for a new Disney documentary called "Babies." Of course.

I felt a little like Bella from New Moon...Dov kept asking me how I was and I wanted him to stop asking because I was fine when I didn't think about it. But I said, "Fine."

And I really am. I am disappointed, don't get me wrong. But I am so blessed by the church I go to, the family that prays for me and my Facebook network that sends prayers and "major MOJO" our way!

Dov & I are a family, whether there are children or not.

This morning at church, our pastor talked about how we have replaced the Hope of Christ with Wishful Thinking, Blind Optimism and Ambitious Goals.

I didn't see who was running the light board, but it felt like they had the spotlight on my chair. I have approached this whole situation with blind optimism and a LOT of wishful thinking.

But my Hope should not be in my husband. It should not be in SRM or in my ability to lose weight (an ambitious goal, to be sure!) or in my nutritionist. My Hope is in Christ, and not my will but His be done!

Which is easy to say...and by His strength, I will walk the road He lays before me!

Waiting for Guffman

Saturday went perfectly. Dov went in at 8:30 and gave his part of the genetic material at SRM's office in Seattle. The lab then "washed" it and weeded out the swimmers with whorler's.

I arrived at 1pm (after a phone call to the answering service because the front doors were locked - I completely overlooked the telephone box between the two doors...) and the bracelet they gave me had both my name and Dov's name on it. Then, they had me verify that the signature on the paperwork that accompanied the material they brought in matched Dov's. (I wanted to ask if they had any Viggo Mortensen lying around, but they were all business, so I refrained...) I felt completely reassured that it wasn't someone elses.

Then, the tech inserted a very thin syringe past my cervix and pushed the plunger. (I wanted to yell, "release the hounds!" but again, they're all business, so I bit my tongue.)

She advised me there was no clinical proof that lying still for 10 minutes has any effect one way or the other. However, if I was the type of person that would kick myself for not doing everything I could have done if I didn't get pregnant, she'd set the timer.

I stayed until the timer dinged.

Now, we wait two weeks and I'll take a pregnancy test. If it's positive, I'll go in for a confirmation appointment, and they'll release me to my regular doctor. If not, we'll start again with the Provera.

There's certainly plenty to do in the meantime, with Christmas just around the river bend. Hopefully, I can keep myself distracted long enough that December 19th arrives quickly.

We'll see!

Storming the Castle!

I go in for my IUI tomorrow at 1pm!

I've started calling it "Storming the Castle" on Facebook, because "Turkey Baster" is just weird. :)

And an Intra-uterine Insemination (IUI) is basically the lab picking the healthiest little soldiers to attack and fertilze and egg, which has some pretty good defenses.

Then we wait.

I'm in the 10% success rate group, so there is a very large possiblity that I'll have to do this again. But that's ok.

Good thing flexible spending renews in a month!

The cost here is about $850 per attempt (including the costs of ovulation predictor kits and pregnancy tests) which is still less expensive than an InVitro Fertilization (IVF). (If we do attempt an IVF, and it's a boy, we are going to name him Scott E. so we can laugh when he becomes a teenager and says "I wish I wasn't artificially created in a lab!" Poor kid...) We are going to attempt three IUI's before we look to IVF, but the possibility still remains.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have the procedure tomorrow, and then I'll find out what the next step is. Hopefully, we'll have a tiny little Christmas present!

The Countdown Starts...

It's been awhile since I posted, but it's also been awhile since I've had any news.

After the recovery from the polypectomy, I saw my nutritionist and my MD again. The nutritionist and I decided to keep in touch via email on a weekly basis and we'll go by the scale at SRM to see how I'm doing.

My MD and I caught up toward the end of October and we reviewed my surgery, the recovery process and the plan from now on. I also discovered he is no longer delivering babies, which is a little disappointing. However, he assured me that the specialists he'll refer me to are top of their field and I shouldn't have any problems at all.

If that happens, it will be the first time in this whole process...

I started feeling abnormally tired in the afternoons a couple of weeks ago, so I took a pregnancy test before I started the Provera, just in case. It was negative. (Stupid cold.) So I started the Provera and waited. And waited. And waited.

I really hoped I wasn't pregnant, because the birth defects associated with taking provera when you're pregnant are pretty severe. I was going to wait another five days before I started getting worried.

Turns out there was no need to worry: not pregnant.

This means we are able to try our first round of IUI!

I start the Clomid on Thursday, which should make my ovaries start producing lots of eggs.

My appointment for the first "exploratory" ultrasound to see if I have ovulated will be on December 1st. If I haven't ovulated, I'll have to schedule another ultrasound. (Last time we did this ultrasound, I ovulated on day 19...) When they find a follicle, they'll give me a shot in the hip and then we'll come in the next day to have the procedure.

Romantic, isn't it?

I never thought I'd need clinical intervention, but I'm really glad they're around!