Thursday, November 29, 2012

Best best friends and moving forward

I have to tell you that I have two of the best best friends a girl could ever ask for! One, AG, is a newer friend in the past year and a half, but a true blessing from God.  She is PhD student with me and understands so much about me.  When we began our friendship I was floored at how God had put this amazing woman in my life at a time in which I need her so badly.  She and her husband have been married about a year and a half and are not trying to have kids yet.  Despite being in relatively different places in our lives she is more supportive than you could ever imagine about what we are going through.  We see each other daily and she always ask and when I say I don't want to burden her with it she is quick to assure me I am not!  What a blessing!

My other best friend is LH and we have been friends for over 5 years now and she was in our wedding and I was there for the birth of all 3 of her wonderful children! She and her husband moved to Georgia a year and a half ago (which is why I need a friend so bad when AG showed up!) so she too could pursue a PhD.  It is such an amazing blessing to have these two amazing women in my life who are both going through a PhD program.  LH has been there for me through so much.  She helped me plan our wedding, even doing my registries at time because I didn't know what I needed! Even though she lives 5 hours away we talk just about everyday, some days multiple times, and it feels as if she is still just down the street.  Yesterday I checked the mail and she had sent me the most thoughtful IVF care package!!!! Her twin sister just did IVF and had twins (yay!) and over the Thanksgiving break they put together my IVF care package.  She says there is even more to come which is amazing.  I am telling you all that I have the best best friends ever!!!!!!!

I have had two doctors appointments in the past week.  The first one was the 3 day ultrasound and blood work.  I have not gotten the results from the blood work back, but the ultrasound went great! I had 23 follies:-) I was very pumped about this and so was my doctor!  This week I had an SIS test done.  Not a painful procedure during, but after oh man did I have cramps.  The results of the test were "perfect" as my doctor said.  Now we just have to sign consent forms on Wednesday and meet with the counselor and wait for AF to show up around Christmas!  Yay.

Monday, November 19, 2012

AF has arrived!!!

For the first time in many months I was excited to see AF this morning! Granted I was not excited for the horrible cramps that accompanied her but I will take it.  Now we can move forward with the process.  Just waiting to talk to my nurse tomorrow and then will begin blood work and ultrasounds! Whoa it really is about to start!

We have not decided which plan to go (ARC offers multiple plans) but we have a few weeks (ok maybe 2) to decide! The main thing holding us up is that we have to use all frozen embryos before we can move on to the next fresh cycle.  How many frozen cycles do you all usually end up?  The packages include on frozen per fresh cycle.  However, if we have remaining frozen we have to use them prior to doing a fresh.  I am going to talk to my nurse and the financial rep for the office and see what they say but I would love to hear from you all!

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Our plan and my wonderful husband

I have been meaning to post this since last week but have not gotten around to.  We finally have a plan! I love having a plan, nothing makes me happier:-)

We are going to be using ARC fertility program to finance our IVF.  If you are not familiar with them they offer multiple plans for couples interested in fertility treatments.  We have decided to start with the 1plus plan which consists of 1 fresh cycle and 1 frozen cycle.  We are also using their refund guarantee program in which we either have a live birth or we receive 70% of our payment back.  The main reason we have decided to go with the 1 plus plan is that the hubby made a good point: we have no idea if my body can even handle a pregnancy!  We are fortunate in that we have not experienced a miscarriage or even a chemical pregnancy.  However, this also means we have no idea what my body can or can't do related to carrying a pregnancy.  We are going to start with this plan but have committed to each other that if we do not get pregnant with the first plan we will continue to pursue children (either adoption, surrogacy, or adoption).  This was extremely important to me to hear from him.  I needed to be assured that if this does not work we will not just give up and live a childless life.  I could not handle that.  Knowing that this is only step one and we have multiple options left I feel a thousand time better. 

We have spent a lot of time praising God lately.  I know that may sound extremely odd to some of you.  Why would we praise God in a time when we are not able to get pregnant and are having to go to science to try and achieve pregnancy? Hubby feels so strongly that we are meant to be together and that this is just more proof of that.  We have talked about IVF since probably around month 6 of dating (crazy I know!).  It is something that has always been a very real possibility for us as a result of my endo.  We had absolutely no way of knowing that the reason we would ultimately need to do it is a result of his SA.  He feels that it is such a blessing that we were already open to IVF.  He keeps saying what if I had ended up with someone who was not open to IVF or who did not expect to have to do it.  This way it is something we had already anticipated and have moved very quickly towards it.  So praise God that He had a hand in all of this way before we even knew we would need it!  He really brought us together for purpose and we believe that more and more everyday as a result of all of this. 

I love my husband so much and I appreciate him more than words can ever express.  He is an amazing man who stands by his word no matter what and I know when he promises me that we will have children in our home someway that he means it and will make it happen.  All of this has brought us even closer together, which I was not aware could even happen.  So many couples that we know struggle with their marriage without going through infertility and I just praise God that we are coming together and are on the same page in all of this. 

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Here we go....

We had our appointment on Wednesday to get the results from the last SA and figure out a plan.  We now have a plan which makes me extremely happy and much more comfortable!

We are entering the world of IVF.  Hubby's results were still not good (4.5million count, 25% mobility, and 1% morphology) so this the only real option we have at this point when you add in my endo.  No one ever goes to the doctor hoping they say "you get to do IVF now yay for you!!!!" so obviously we were hoping the results were better than before were we could do IUI.  However, been realistic we knew this was probably not going to happen. 

IVF has been something that I accepted years ago, literally when I was about 19. I have already cried about the possibility and been upset about having to do it so when we found out yesterday I was completely good!  Hubby ask some good questions, success rates, anything else we should consider before moving forward etc.  We had talked about that this was a very real possibility and his biggest thing was if we should do it in Gainesville (where we live) or drive 2 hours to the clinic in Jacksonville.  The clinic in Jacksonville has excellent success rates and I have known several people to get pregnant very quickly there and who speak highly of that clinic.  Our doctor in Gainesville was able to really sell us on doing it in Gainesville.  We are going to do it here and stay here as long as we feel it is the best place for us.  I love that I already know all the nurses, the lab techs, the financial lady, and all the sweet women who check us out weekly!  I am hopeful that the comfortable of being in this surrounding will help. 

The game plan is to wait.  No seriously... I have to wait for my next period to start, go figure.  Now I am just waiting and praying my cycle won't be crazy long this month.  Once that starts I get to do an ultrasound, FSH testing and a SIS test on my uterus.  From there I believe I start birth control (crazy right! go on birth control to try and get pregnant yep prefect logic....).  Then lupron shots.  From there I honestly don't remember the next steps...shots, shots, and more shots I believe. 

Regardless of the specifics I am super pumped to have a plan and to feel confident in this plan!  Of course I have some more tests to do more this actually happens, but I feel like we are moving in the right direction.  Oh and of course there is the cost issue...yeah about that.....