New options!

I'm sorry I haven't updated in so long but when you are dealing with adoption the wait is soooo much longer than fertility treatments and the news is always few and far between. We are waiting on a court date to happen that keeps getting pushed back as court dates always do. I can't really give out much more information than that but I would appreciate prayers for the situation. Even if it doesn't work out for us, these kids need prayer because the situation is obviously not the greatest or there wouldn't be any court dates.

As many of you know, I'm a teacher. There is a parent in my room who is an experienced surrogate and she has offered to carry for us! She had twin boys for another couple so she knows what it feels like to do this for someone. She also volunteers in my classroom so I have gotten to know her really well this year. I've always wanted to try this because we have done everything but surrogacy but my husband was against it in the past. After the ups and downs of trying to adopt, he's come around to the idea! We can't move forward just yet because she is under contract with another couple but hopefully this time next year we will be talking about fertility treatments again!As weird as it sounds I can't wait for retrievals and transfers again. And this time we will be taking my body out of it so it could really work. We are thinking about trying once with our own embryos just to see. I'm nervous about trying it with my egg since I'm 38 but I guess it's something we need to try before doing donor eggs. I'm just scared that it won't work the first time and I'll be tempted to try again and waste more time and money. Hopefully one try will give us the closure we need for a biological child.

So a lot is going on in our lives but it's very slow moving. If something happens with this adoption, we still may want to try the surrogacy. I always wanted a whole houseful! Maybe this is our road to becoming a family finally.

Hanging out in the 2ww!

Hey guys! Sorry it's taken me so long to post. Well my 8 embryos grew to day 5 and they picked out my two best ones to transfer on President's Day. The two they chose were one stage until blast and two stages until blast. The doctor said they have until day 6 so it was OK they weren't quite there yet but it still made me nervous. The transfer went well and they said they would call about the rest of them growing to blast to freeze.

They called on Tuesday with the news that none of my other embabies made it to blast. This news was so devastating. Not only was I sad that no one made it but also that maybe the quality wasn't very good. I know they put the best two inside me but still. (I would post a picture of them but my iPad isn't allowing me to post any pics right now.)

This Friday, March 2, is my blood test date. I'm planning on driving to Knoxville that morning, working a half day at school, then taking the afternoon off just in case the news isn't good. I don't think hearing news like that would be very good around a bunch of 4-year-olds. That is, if I make it without AF until Friday. Last IVF I started on Tuesday when the test was on a Friday. Waiting is sooooooooooooooo hard. I bought three HPTs today and I'm trying to wait until Wednesday to take one. If I get a negative then it will help prepare me for Friday. If it's positive, it'll give me hope.

Blessings in Disguise

I was eating my lunch at school Monday morning and saw a missed call from my mom. After listening to her voice mail, I saw the saved call from my doctor last Friday. I had already listened to the message. I was specifically listening for the changed dosage of Follistim when I heard the message for the first time. On Monday I decided to listen one more time before I deleted it.

As I listened it said,"....and your trigger shot will be on Sunday night." WHAT? I hadn't taken that shot last night. For some reason I had it in my head that I was not doing any shots Sunday, trigger on Monday and retrieval Tuesday morning. I really don't know why I even thought that though. Last time I did trigger, rest day then retrieval. I had three calendars that said the right days. Now I was panicking.

I called the nurse and she talked to the doctor about what happened. He said it was a good thing I caught it because if I had taken it Monday night and came in Tuesday, there would've been no eggs to get. So now I was triggering Monday night, resting Tuesday and retrieving Wednesday. I was glad I didn't totally screw the whole thing up but I wasn't convinced things were going to go well because of my careless mistake. It's weird that I even did something like this at all because I'm so anal about this whole process. Checking my calendars 5 times a day! So how did this happen? I believe God knows how.

Brad was super sweet during this whole ordeal. Monday night he said we should go out to eat because I didn't need to cook. That was a great idea except I wasn't going to miss giving that trigger again! He said we'd just take it with us in a cooler. So we gave my trigger shot in the Ruby Tuesday parking lot! He's such a supportive husband.

Retrieval day went well. I thought maybe they'd go in and find zero because of my mistake, but they got 8! That is probably close to what they would've gotten had I not messed up because several of them were measuring 10 last Friday. Disaster averted!

So now it's Thursday morning and they just called with a fertilization report. All 8 of my eggs were fertilized!!!!!!! The nurse said,"Remember when the doctor said everything happens for a reason? Well I think he was right. You did better this time than last time!"

He's right. Everything does happen for a reason. There was a reason my mom left that message Monday morning. There was a reason I messed up the schedule. I'm not saying I believe God allowed all this to happen because this definitely is our time. But I do know this wasn't by accident. Hopefully all of this will be our blessing(s) in disguise. We'll transfer Saturday or Monday. Keep those prayers coming. I'll try to show up for transfer on the right day. ;)

An egg hunt for Valentine's!

I have 12 follicles and my lining was great! My retrieval is Tuesday but we aren't sure about the transfer date yet. If we do a 3 day, it will be Friday. They may try to push them to blast and if so, transfer will be Sunday. I have mixed feelings about pushing them. Blasts are much stronger and give us the best chance for implantation and pregnancy. But there is a chance they will try to push them and none of them will live to day 5. Last time we did a 3 day with 2 embryos and they pushed the rest to blast. Only one of those embryos made it and that's the one that we froze. I'm just scared all of them will die and we'll be left with nothing. I guess all we can do is trust the doctor's judgement and pray. Oh by the way did anyone watch the Today Show this morning? There was an infertility segment about a couple who use the same facility we do. They showed a short interview with Dr. Scheiber which is who we saw this morning. Pretty cool!

One of the questions we wanted answered today was the possibility of transferring three embryos instead of two. I explained that we've done countless IUIs with both Clomid and injectables plus our IVF this summer and I've responded beautifully to all these meds BUT none of it works. Our thought was if we transferred two and got none, maybe transferring three would yield one. Basically he said if you're under 35 (I'll be 34 on April 3)they only do 2 unless the embryo quality is poor. He said you really don't want babies born at 26 weeks in the NICU. I had to agree with that. I just want it to work. :(

Our other question was if they would prescribe Lovenox for my clotting disorder should I become pregnant. He said that was actually in my folder to discuss. Last time they weren't so sure if I needed them, that aspirin might be enough but I wasn't convinced or ok with taking that chance. He said I will take aspirin until the day of a positive beta then start on the shots the following day should the test be positive. I will never be so happy to stick myself for 9 months! All in all a wonderful day!

The Sweetest Day of My Life (hopefully)

I had my blood work drawn early this morning so my next step is an ultrasound and more blood work on Friday afternoon to check my growing follicles. If things go as planned, retrieval will be on Valentine's Day and transfer the following Friday. How sweet would it be to be conceived on Valentine's Day? I hope this is the wonderful beginning of our baby's life. Please continue your prayers. :)