Phew. Its getting hot in here!!!

I've been a dang sauna ALL DAY LONG! And that's only after 2 days. Good gracious. The joys of birth control pills...

I've been having hot flashes all day, like overwhelming uncontrollable bursts of heat and sweat. Reminds me of my days on Lupron. Oh crap Lupron is next on the 25th!!! Gracious sakes! Its gonna be one heck of an electric bill this month I think!

Wow this is gonna be fun! LOL My body (and my hubby) don't have a clue what is coming! HA!!!

OK that's all, just wanted to moan about being HOT!! (Course Matt always says I'm HOT! :-) ) Silly little posts about nothing shall be what you see I'm sure!!! Hey its my blog and I can do what I want! HA! Have a blessed day in the Lord!

And so it begins....

So today was the IVF nurse meeting, CD2 labs and u/s, and financials appt's at the RE's office.

So first off, God is good! Heck God is GREAT!

I have my calender, and they were able to extend me out passed Sis in Law's wedding, so I start BCP's next Sunday (since I have long cycles, its not a big deal anyway to be extended). I then start an injectable med called Lupron (aka loopy-pron as Matt calls it) on 05/25 which I'll take for a while...Basically the RE is trying to shut down my system and get it coordinated so that my ovaries are prepared to start talkin' to each other and creating gobs of eggs and mature them. Then I start stim on June 6th!! EEK! B/c urologist has to be on call for egg retrieval in the event that Matt has no live sperm, he can do TESE right then and there. (ouchie for Matt) All tho we are freezing some of Matt's guys ahead of time so there is fresh AND frozen to work with for the ICSI...but we don't think it will be a problem. But just in case we will have the doc on hand who can extract sperm if needed. (I know its confusing, it is to us as well)

So stim on June 6th for 7-10 days and it LOOKS like my little 3 or 4 or 5 day embie(s) will be implanted over weekend time, so at least one of my 2 bedrest days will be on a wknd. Which means less time missed. YAY BUT work is totally being excitedly cool about it so its not being an issue!!! And all the blood work days, I'll have 7am appts so blood work will be done and I'll be to work by 830-900 at the latest. YIPPEE!!!

So here is when GOD IS GOOD starts coming in to play. We sat down with the $$ girl...I expected to swipe $6000 on my credit card today, pay upfront then get reimbursed for what ends up NOT being used. Yea well not only was $$ girl a CHRISTIAN and praising Jesus with us...She is not having us up front pay b/c she wants to submit to insurance first to see how much of each thing is covered. And she said that the whole cycle is billed at $12,000 but our insurance is contracted for pretty much HALF of that so that will be the "cost" and then 50% of THAT is our cost. However ultrasounds and labs are covered at 100% so the HALF is more like a 1/3. She figures WITH ICSI and freezing charges for sperm and embryos, it will come to about $2500 out of pocket. Almost $4000 less then we planned!!!!! She said to plan on $5000 cushion but that being if there are complications and TESE is needed and extra stim and stuff, but she said, its doubtful and will probably be around 1/2 of that cushion... Oh my goodness! that's amazing!!!! AND my meds are covered at 100%!! (which is around $3-4000)

It's overwhelming how amazing this is!!! And if the fundraiser is successful, we may come out of this w/o paying much of anything out of pocket, meaning NOTHING charged, meaning Oh my goodness this is awesome! Talk about Gods perfect timing in all things! Our nurse is wonderful (her name is Michelle) and she was just wonderfully understanding and compassionate. Which is nice. I said to her, "good lord this is like signing my life away in to craziness." which she answered, "yes it is craziness, but we will love and support you through it." brought tears! She was just AMAZING!!

I'm just so excited and thrilled and full to the brim with peace for each and every step! Its just unbelievable how awesome our God is! They do recommend however that we back off telling the world wide web about each and every step. To just stick with the core group of friends and family. So we are going to stop posting on Facebook, but I'll keep posting on the blog. So please know, to keep up with whats going on, you'll have to check out the blog!!! I understand where she is coming from and I agree. Need to just focus on what is to come and the love and support from those who KNOW and understand, not try to explain or justify this to anyone. So continued prayers as always, and we'll keep you posted! It will be pretty boring for the next while.

So that's our update!! More to come b/c its time to get this PARTY STARTED!!! Have a blessed day in the Lord!

Ok, so here we are. :-)

What a crazy ride this has been and we haven't really even started yet!! First off, I lied. Don't keep May 15th open, keep the 23rd open...Sorry had many schedule changes to make this work, but it is purchased and set in STONE!!! BBQ of HOPE will be May 23rd at 11am at Sago Park in Palm Springs, FL. I'm stoked, its a beautiful park and we already have so much planned! Just need some more fine tuning and a guest list. $10 a head for food and drink, but we will also be having a bake sale and raffle to help with the $$ raising. Its gonna be a great time! Come one come all!!!! Bring your kids, bring a friend!

So Matt and I went out to eat tonight just to sit quietly for 2 1/2 hrs and sign consent forms for IVF. Holy gracious sakes its about 20 pages of forms. What we want fertilized, how many to put back in my womb, what to do with left over embryo's, what to do if one or both of us dies, who do we want to care for the embryo's if we both die, do we give them up for donation, do we destroy them (hell to the NO), how many to freeze, do we freeze if only one survives and on and on and on...Needless to say, both our heads were spinning by the time we were done, and that was on iced tea only!!! Sheesh, such complication to have a kid! Gracious!

Thankfully we can just not sign what we don't understand and this Thursday we will have a meeting with the IVF nurse to go over the consents, questions, finances, all that fun stuff. We have a LIST of questions a mile long, but at least they are written down, so if there is any confusion we'll remember what we wanted to ask. OH MY GRACIOUS I feel some hyperventilating coming on....HEE HEE HOO!! HEE HEE HOO!!! I guess this is practice for Lamaze breathing. HA!

So Thursday is the next appt. I have CD2 labs and u/s done and then sometime in the next week or so I start birth control pills (BCP). EEEK! I can't believe this is happening! We are ACTUALLY STARTING IVF!!! Just freaks the crapoley out of me, but yet I know that God is in control. Need to do more of that deep breathing! Good Lord help me! We are excited though. I'm ready, finally ready to proceed forward. Ready for closure, ready for answers. And so ready to hold a little one in my arms. I know I'm jumping the gun, counting my eggs before they hatch (HA!! Or before they even get LAID!), but I'm hopeful. Hopeful that God will bring us the desire of our hearts. But yes, I'm also realistic. Gosh heavy stuff for 10 at night!

So there you have it. Fundraisers, updates, BCP's and the start of the ride!! I feel like the shoulder bars just came down and clicked in to position, and the ride is about to start!!! Aren't you SO excited you get to come on this ride with us??? :-) Well its now or never, and all I can do is look straight ahead, hold on for dear life, and pray that I come out of this still breathing!! (and hopefully not puking! HA) Have a blessed day in the Lord!

FUNDRAISING!!!

I'm so excited! So after some research and planning, it SEEMS we are going to have a BBQ Fundraiser for IVF $$...I'm totally stoked. Found this FABULOUS park (that is only $75 for the day!) and it has all kinds of fun stuff, volleyball, a dock to fish from, horse shoes, playground...Plus a lot of land to run around on. I'm hoping and praying its available on the 15th of May b/c if it is WE ARE GONNA PARTY!!!

Details are to come (after confirmation for getting the pavilion) but it looks like it will be a BBQ with a requested $10 a head, plus raffles and games where money and prizes may be won. (we'll see how that flies) Plus food fun and fellowship!!!

I've been so amazed at the response already, at those who are willing to give to help us toward this goal, to support us and HOPE for this child too. Knowing that its not 100%, that IVF isn't necessarily going to work, but willing to hope with us, sacrifice for us and our hopeful child(ren). That means the world to me. More then you will ever know...

So save the date... MAY 15th, 2010 at lunch time. We are going to (hopefully) have a BBQ OF HOPE!!!! Thank you for loving and supporting us. Your thoughts, prayers and kindness is what gets us through every single day!!! Have a blessed day in the Lord!

Sorry been a little crazy...

A bit of an update. OK a HUGE update!!! :-)

So on Tuesday I went for whats called a Trial Transfer...Basically my RE was measuring the length of my cervix and uterine wall so when we ARE transferring embryo's, there is little trauma as possible. Thankfully trial transfer was a piece of cake. I have a "retro easy entry cervix" woohoo! Aren't we excited. IUI's were pretty easy for me when I had them (very similar process)So this was fine and dandy...bonus for me! YAY One thing that is EASY!!!

Now I told you before that Matt has to be tested and all that, and they were greatly concerned. Well get this. They checked all of Matt's blood minus a few tests that they are still waiting on and everything is 100% perfect. Doesn't look genetic either. So the SA retest showed that even with such a low count there was still about 1% normal out of 500,000...Still a decent enough number for ICSI which was the plan all along. SOOO, she wants him to still see the urology male factor specialist on the 23rd, but they (RE and uro) have already been discussing his case and b/c everything looks normal lab and genetic wise, it is probably secondary to him sitting all the time. No way for the guys too cool b/c he sits in the wheelchair, and, short of him sitting on an ice pack all day, there isn't much we can do. Kinda like a perpetual sauna for the spermies!

BUT we can still move forward w/ICSI and IVF!! YAY! AND, barring any complications, WE ARE STARTING NEXT MONTH! So we need the Uro's go ahead, but b/c everything so far looks normal there is no real reason he would halt the IVF, so with my next period, I start with CD2 labs and u/s, then go on BCP's and Lupron!! Followed by stim, retrieval and transfer! EEEEKKK!!!!!!

This is really happening! I'm so excited. Cautiously excited, but excited none the less. The will freeze 1-2 "samples" from Matt and then collect fresh the day of retrieval (when they pull out my eggs) with the hopes that in those samples they will have enough normal sperm to do the ICSI.

One unfortunate is Dr. K is moving back to NY and will not be the one that does the retrieval, :-(, but she is going to work with the new RE (also a lady who she said is very sweet/compassionate, like minded to her) hand in hand with our case, so she'll basically just pick up where Dr. K will leave off. So it will be Dr. W.

I have to believe that God is laying out this path how it is supposed to fall for a reason. So I'm not stressing, all tho I'm a little sad, but its OK, we'll take it a step at a time!! Even with the new RE.

So that's our update!! In just about 3-4 weeks, the process will begin!! (assuming the urologist clears Matt) Can you believe it?? We need to do some fundraising b/c overall it will be probably close to $7,000 out of pocket, give or take. And, while we are doing much better financially, we are not farmers of money trees. So ideas appreciated it!!!

Continue to pray, we'll keep you posted. Thank you for joining us on this journey. It helps to have some many people care and love us through this! Have a blessed day in the Lord!

Update from our Appt...

So we are home from the Bahamas. We had an AMAZING time and just relaxed, slept, baked in the sun, and enjoyed the wonderful time. I love island time, its so easy going!!! Pictures and stuff to come once I get the time to upload them to the computer. We flew in Tues afternoon and my dad was kind enough to take us to our appt with Dr. K. This was the update after finishing all the wonderful tests and procedures prior to us starting IVF. Unfortunately, not all good news...

I'm doing good, I have a good ovarian reserve, thank God. My Hgb A1C was PERFECT (5.4) and I'm NON insulin resistant. So its definitely simple PCOS controlled with Metformin. That's good. I had a little bit elevated testosterone level, but she feels that will work out OK with the kind of protocol we would use for IVF. (explains the facial hair and deep manly voice. OK I'm kidding about the voice, unfortunately not about the hair. Thank the LORD I'm a blonde!) I do however have a little liver thingy going on. I have elevated liver enzymes and extremely elevated triglycerides (350 yea I know CRAZY!), all tho the rest of my panels are PERFECT and so is my cholesterol. So I should have a liver scan done eventually, just to be safe. (I have history of a fatty liver, runs in my family and has always given me an elevated liver enzyme) Just to be SAFE tho..They found an itty bitty fibroid in my uterus (which is new, never had one of them) and weirdly enough, I'm no longer immune to chicken pox. Go figure. So i have to get a varicella shot! LOL silly.

But here is the problem...

Matt's SA came back HORRIBLE, <500,000 and his morphology came back at <2% normal. Normal Semen analysis. He has only abnormal sperm and not many of them. She is greatly concerned, b/c she think she has either a genetic thing going on (one brother is IF also, one is fertile Myrtle) or some kind of gonadaltropin deficiency or hypothalamus issue. We can not go forward with IVF b/c we don't have really any viable sperm to work with and she is concerned that there is something that would prevent fertilization anyway. So now its Matt's turn. He has to see a urologist (which happens to work with my RE and is one of the best in his field for Male Factor IF) and have work up done. They are doing a HUGE panel of blood work on him (ha ha his turn!! :P) and checking a bunch of other genetic anomalies....So at this point, we are STOPPED dead in our tracks. Talk about coming to a SCREECHING halt.

She wants to continue moving forward as if we are doing IVF, so in a couple weeks I'll have a trial transfer and consult with the IVF nurse and go over paperwork/protocol/cost, etc...So that's in about 3 weeks....But before then Matt goes for his stuff....

I'm trying to hold it together, we are trying not to do our normal tantrum fit. I mean we might be halted all together b/c it may not be possible for Matt's guys to fertilize an egg. I'm a bit scared, this stinks....But we're trying to hold faith and just pray THY WILL BE DONE. I want answers and closure, and this may be how I will get it, whether we can do IVF or not...But it is very difficult to think we may not even get the chance to try for IVF. But we might find some underlying issue of Matt's that needs to be fixed and could cause other health issues.

Its hard, no matter how you look at it. One good thing is if we CAN'T do IVF b/c of something with the spermies, my body seems to be A-OK for carrying a baby and we can try for Embryo Adoption. But that is another thought for another day. So as always, continued prayers are appreciated. We will keep you posted as to what the urologist says. For now, I'm headed to bed!!! Have a blessed day in the Lord!

Update...All is finished...

Sorry it has been so super duper busy, I haven't had a chance to sit down and just write. My goodness its amazing how life can just fly by without a 2nd thought!!!

Update on our newest journey:
All tests are finished!! Hooray!!! I had my HSG last week on Monday. It was rather traumatic and I had a lot of issues, but after 3 tries and lots of repositioning, the doctor was able to finish the test. Thankfully everything looks fine for IVF. My left tube is wide open, the right is questionable, but there are no blockages or fluid build up that would cause toxicity to the embryos. So from and HSG point of view, we are good to go!!!

We have an appt on the 16th with Dr. K and will sit down and come up with protocol, plan, find out all the test results, etc. I'm still a bit questionable if we'll be able to do IVF. I'll be happy to hear her say we're a go...As for the $$ aspect of it, oh my goodness God is so good!!!! He just boggles my mind with the blessings He has given us! Our bills that are in are up to just around $4000 so far. Now per initial conversations with the insurance and the billing people at Dr. K's office, insurance only pays 50%. But I'll have you know, that so far, we have paid only $145 out of pocket!!! Yes that is it!!! I'm so utterly amazed!!! Now the big stuff is still coming, and the need for the finances are still there, but for now, we haven't had to pay for pretty much ANY of the tests and preparation stuff!!!! That is amazing!! I hope that you praise God with me!!!

So here we are, in just about a week, we'll have a game plan. And come the beginning of April, we just might be starting the roller coaster ride of our lives!!!

And to prepare for it, Matt and I are going away!! My work has been so wonderful!! Fabulous actually about all the tests and prep. Matt and I found an AMAZING deal for an all inclusive trip to the Bahamas, including food/airfare/hotel, for 4 nights and 5 days. My boss was kind enough to let me go as is Matt's boss. So we leave THIS Friday until next Tuesday. Yup we come back the day of the appt with Dr. K!! Its kind of our last little getaway, a time to be with each other as we prepare for what is to come. Whatever the result. We are so excited and grateful for the break!! With all that happened in the last year with Matt and with me, and our jobs, well we are ready for a break from life!!!

So that's it. Just pretty much holding right now until we talk with Dr. K. I'm excited, and peaceful, for what is coming. I'm just ready to be DONE. Done trying to conceive, done counting cycle days, done wondering, hoping, praying month after month for a miracle that doesn't come. I'm DONE. I'm ready for this last chance, and I'm ready for closure. I'm so ready to be DONE. So this is it folks!! First comes a vacay, then the news that will change our lives!!!

Please continue to pray for us as the fiances fall into place, the MD appts, and everything else that is to come!!! Thank you for loving and supporting us!!! Have a blessed day in the Lord!