ONE WEEK

Today is officially one week from the end of the shots! We had a very rough time Saturday night adjusting to the amount of medicine and preparation required, but we have since developed a routine and are doing just fine with it all. Matt is such a trooper, and we are growing ever closer through this process. Okay, enough mushy stuff.

I went to the RE today for bloodwork to check my hormone levels and make sure I'm responding well and I should get a call sometime this afternoon to let me know that all is well and to adjust the dosages of the injections. I'll make sure to post an update at that time. I have an appointment every other day this week to monitor growth/check hormone levels, so it should fly by pretty quickly. Hope everyone is having a great day!

****Just got the call from the nurse. They were looking for my levels to be over 100 and they were 353! I am responding very well to the medicine and I'll go in on Thursday to see all the blooming follies! Very exciting!

Just call me PIN CUSHION

Everything is going well on our side of the world. We happily only have 10 days of shots left and begin the follicle stimulating hormones tonight. Although we are not looking forward to 3 shots per evening and appointments every other day, we realize how quickly we are racing to the finish line. As much preparation and planning went in to this one little cycle, it is passing rather quickly for both of us. My arms are pretty bruised and my mood swings have been quite noticeable. It seems that the poor men at my work have issued a warning about me amongst themselves. Apparently, anything that needs to be said to me is being filtered through my boss in the hopes to keep from upsetting me in any way, HAHA. I am SO fortunate to have a boss that understands what I'm going through (he and his wife endured both IUI and IVF) and that is so incredibly supportive and flexible. I am also EXTREMELY blessed to have such a wonderful husband that puts up with my whining and sticking me with needles every night (which I know is REALLY hard for him) and is taking such good care of me. He is truly the most wonderful man on earth.

I'm not sure if I have a cold or my allergies are kicking in, but I've been incredibly sick since Thursday and because of the study and IVF, I cannot take anything except Sudaphed and Tylenol, neither of which are helping, so I simply stopped taking those too. I think I'm going to go get some orange juice and hopefully the extra vitamin C will knock all this out. I really need all my strength to recover quickly from the egg retrieval since I'll be going back to work after only two days off. I will then work for another 3 days until it's time for the transfer back in and I will most likely take 3 days off at that time to stay on my back and PRAY that the embryos implant. There's obviously a little nervous tension in our home right now. We are SO hoping this is successful on the first try. I can't even imagine the extreme elation we would feel if this turned out to work. I catch myself praying constantly. Please work!

The Birds and The Bees

One day I know our children will come to us and ask the question that strikes fear into the hearts of parents everywhere..."Where do babies come from?" Well guess what? I have the easiest answer ever:



Yes, it is true! The medication arrived on Saturday and after a mild panic attack seeing so many needles, we are ready to begin the next leg of this crazy process. We begin injections in 2 days and I can't help but think about the (hopeful) end result. Matt allowed me to purchase our very first baby item yesterday for good luck. It was a 5 pack of gender neutral newborn onesies with cute little stitched animals on the front. Very cute! Luckily, we inherited a bunch of fun baby stuff from our good friend Kristin and so we have quite a collection of little baby things in one of the spare bedrooms, but it's different to see something WE purchased hanging in the closet waiting to be worn. We can't wait for all the fun things to come!

Detailed Calendar

The appointment went VERY well yesterday and I am happy to report that it has begun! I received a very detailed calendar with lots of important dates so I thought I would share these with you all.

April 3-Begin Birth Control Pills
April 17-Sonogram and Begin Lupron injections
April 20th-Last Birth Control Pill
April 25th-First blood draw and Sonogram
April 26th-Begin Gonal F and Menopur injections
April 29th-Blood draw
May 1st-Blood draw and Sonogram
May 3rd-Blood draw and Sonogram
May 5th-Blood draw and Sonogram
May 6th-Last day of injections. Possible HCG injection
May 7-9th-Possible Egg Retrieval
May 12-14th-Possible Embryo Transfer

So that's the long and short of it all. Lots of needles (Yikes) but based on this data, we have a possible due date of 1/28 for a single baby or 1/7 for twins. Of course this can vary greatly, but that's where we sit now. Lots of love to all of you!

First Post-This is going to be a LONG one

Welcome to our world! The purpose of this page is to give our friends and family both near and far a window into our life. We are going through such a dramatic turning point in our lives right now that it only seems fair to share it with all of you. Hopefully this will serve as a place to share our ups and downs and hopefully one day we'll be sharing the progress of our pregnancy and children's lives. But all that is in the future. Here's what is going on now: Matt and I have been trying to get pregnant for 13 months now. We have endured extensive and sometimes invasive testing and our doctors have come to the conclusion that we will not be able to conceive naturally. As heartbreaking as this news was to hear at the time, we have accepted it and moved on to the next step. Thank goodness for modern medicine because without it we would have no hope for ever having a biological family. We have gotten the "go ahead" for our first round of In Vitro Fertilization (or IVF for short). For those of you who have never heard of this procedure, it is for couples with severe infertility and involves the woman taking injections daily for a period of time to stimulate her ovaries to produce more than one healthy egg. A highly trained specialist monitors the woman's hormone levels and follicles (where the eggs are kept on the ovary until maturation) via blood samples and ultrasounds until the eggs are fully mature and ready for fertilization. At that time the woman is sedated with general anesthesia, the eggs removed, and then the specialist fertilizes the eggs using the males sperm. In our case the sperm will be individually injected into the egg so that an embryo will be guaranteed. The embryos are allowed to grow for a set amount of time (typically 4 days) and then the most healthy embryos (in our case two) will be chosen and placed back into the female uterus in the hopes of implantation and therefore pregnancy. It is a very complicated procedure and I hope I didn't just bore you to tears with that influx of information. We have done extensive research on the steps, statistics, etc and chosen the very best doctor in our area to perform this procedure for us. We have had lots of testing done to prepare for this cycle and had to wait another entire cycle to get ready for it. Now the time has finally come and I have my first appointment today to start the process! We could not be more thrilled! I promise to do my best to keep everyone posted on what is going on and hopefully this is just the ticket we need to begin our own family. I should receive a detailed calendar at my appointment today and have more dates and information to update you on for our next post! Thanks for stopping by!