I Smile

I smile even when things aren’t going well.
I smile because I think people would rather see me smile than see a frown.
I smile because it’s easier to say I’m good, than how I’m really feeling.

Yesterday I had a talk with my mother in law. (whom I just love) We started talking about different things and she asked me how I was doing, really doing. I was honest with her and told her, its tough and I’m struggling. I told her I put a smile on and am going through life trying very hard to be happy for everyone.

Then she asked me if it were genuine. At first, I told her it wasn’t. Then I started thinking about it…I guess I’m genuine depending on the day.  Some days I truly am happy for ALL of my friends who are pregnant or have babies. And other times I’m bitter that ALL my friends are pregnant or have new babies. 

I wish everyday I was genuinely happy...

I made someone cry today.

And I don't feel bad for it. She is newly pregnant. She did IVF for her first baby and now is pregnant without IVF. She is ecstatic. At least she was when she told us she was pregnant. But then today, she was complaining to me about how ill she felt and how she dreaded gaining weight, etc and I listened for a little bit...then I reminded her that there are many people who want what she has. And she needs to remember how much she wants this and how lucky she is it happened "on its own" and that it will all be worth it. I told her I'd be happy for her, but I wouldn't feel sorry for her.


Even as I replay it in my mind...I still don't feel bad. Is that bad??

If you want to get pregnant...

hang out with me!  EVERYONE I know is pregnant!!!! I swear, I don't say that lightly.  People who have been trying for a long time are finally pregnant.  People who weren't trying, are pregnant.  People who say they were using birth control, are pregnant.

Make me think...when is it my time???  Seriously??

Bitter, Party of One

As you read in another post, I had issues with my sis in law. She was very emotional while pregnant and didn’t offer her support after we didn’t have a successful IVF. It made me bitter!! We had always been pretty close and it hurt my feelings I didn't get her sympathy or concern when I needed it most.


Fastforward to this past weekend. We went to visit her family and meet our new nephew. They live many states away so its not something that happens very often. I had been dreading this trip. I was nervous to meet my new nephew and I was nervous to see her. I had been upset with her for months without her knowing. We arrive and I meet my new nephew and things were fine. It was late, so we did our small talk and headed to bed. I was grateful to go to my own room...I needed it all to sink in.

The next morning, my father in law was holding the new baby...he needed to do something and handed the baby to me. I really didn't want to hold him, but couldn't say no...so I held him and all my fears went a way...I instantly feel in love with that little guy. I had been dreading it so much because I was jealous, very jealous…I want one of my very own!!!

Then later while talking with my sis in law...I told her how I was feeling. I hadn’t planned on it, but it just started spewing out.  Then she told me her reasons for giving me space. We worked it out and I feel much better not being so bitter. I hate that feeling. Unfortunately, I've been fighting that feeling a lot lately.

How do you keep from being bitter??

I'm really trying to work on this!

My Take On Infertility Blogs

While we were going through IVF I couldn't look at infertility blogs. It was scary for me to see how many times people had tried IVF and failed. I just couldn't read about the failures.


My mind has now changed. It’s very comforting to read about other people going through the journey of infertility. Its a nice way to get advice, vent, rant and maybe even share happiness.

Before we went through IVF, I was so scared of a failure. I really didn't think I'd be able to go on without being pregnant. When we found out we had a miscarriage, our whole future changed. Our plans changed...our life changed. Its hard to wait for something you want so badly and its such a natural thing to want.

Before IVF I was soooo hopeful! I love that feeling of hope!!
I've had a tough time of being hopeful. My hope is hanging by a thread, but its there. Its what I’m relying on to become a mother someday. But let me tell you…some days are easier than others.

Worst Valentines Day

EVER!!
I found out the day before Valentine's Day that my brother and his girlfriend are pregnant. I am MAD! I'm not really mad at them, but I don't know who to place the blame on.
I'm mad that they aren't married, weren't trying to get pregnant, yet get what I want most.
I'm mad I can't have a baby!
I'm mad my mom and dad will be grandparents for the first time and its not my baby!
I'm mad that my brother's girlfriend is going to live with my parents while my brother goes to Iraq.
I'm mad because I really do like my brother's girlfriend. This might be easier to be so mad if she wasn't so nice.

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning was tough. I woke up happy...we had a great Christmas Eve and then went to bed way too late. So maybe instead of waking up happy I woke up tired. My husband and I were sitting in bed talking...really about nothing and then the text message pictures started coming from my sister in law showing our nephew enjoying Christmas morning. Then I got sad...
We started talking about my sis in law who is pregnant and has had a bad pregnancy. She's been an emotional wreck and I haven't been too compassionate about it. (bad I know) My husband talked to her for a while on Christmas Eve. I guess she told him (then Christmas Morning he told me) that she doesn't know how she's going to be able to handle having two kids...blah blah blah. then I got really upset...its SO unfair!! And how dare she say that to my husband when we don't have ANY kids. I won't ever be able to escape those types of comments. But its even tougher coming from family who should know what you are going through.
I hope one day to have a Christmas morning filled with my kids opening presents from Santa. Seeing the joy on their faces! Hopefully one day...

Grief

After the failed IVF, I went to the doctor to talk to him about depression. I had days of non stop bawling.  Its not a good thing, especially at work.  I knew I was in a really bad place. After talking to him, he made me realize that talking about it is a good thing and that I'm not depressed, I'm grieving. He said that the grief process can last for 6-8 months.
Really, I'm just trying to move on with my life. Its tough because I want a baby more than anything, but we can't do anything about it right now. We can't afford to do IVF right now. Its hard when that's really all I want!
So for now I'm going to work on me...

Our Story

We have been trying to have a baby for over 4 years. When we were dating, we talked about when we’d want to have babies. I was ready to have a baby the day we were married, but knowing my husband wasn’t ready we decided to use birth control. We did for about a year and while I knew that my hubby wasn’t quite ready I figured it would come and he’d fall in love with our little bundle of joy. Each month I would pray and hope and think I was pregnant, but with out fail it didn’t happen.
We had been trying for a couple years and I went to our family doctor for a cold or something minor. While I was there I told him about our difficulties trying to conceive. The doctor wanted my husband to get tested first because it’s easier to test a man. We found our problem on the first test. We were then referred to an Urologist who examined my poor husband and there was no visible damage, they just said that it was in his DNA. We were told Invitro Fertilization, a sperm donor or adoption were our only options.
I remained calm while in the doctor’s office and right when we left the office I started sobbing. It didn’t stop the whole way home. We had each drove separately (since we were both coming from work). But when we both got home we just held each other on our couch and cried. It was a VERY upsetting night for both of us.
We took a couple months off before making an appointment to see the fertility doctor. When we did meet with our doctor, he wanted me to go through testing and for my husband to be tested again. We had to wait 3 months before the sperm could be tested again because of the life span of sperm. During those three months I got all my testing done…various blood tests done at different times of my cycle, testing my fallopian tubes, all of which came back normal.
The sperm was tested again and it had the same results. The doctor told us we could try out Artificial Insemination. We were very grateful for this option because it was $750 compared to $15,000 for Invitro.
During our first round of Artificial Insemination I started taking my Clomid and had NO side effects. I had heard horror stories and was very grateful that it was so smooth. The day of my ovulation, I started spotting. I hadn’t ever spotted while ovulating before and I was alarmed. I called the doctor’s office and told them I was spotting and the nurse told me it could be a side effect of the Clomid. We went ahead with the Artificial Insemination. Then we waited the DREADED 2 weeks for my period or if we were lucky a pregnancy test. We were in Pinetop, AZ with my extended family for vacation when I got my period. I was crushed!  Another night we held each other and cried.
We waited a month and started our next round of AI. I started taking the Clomid and got a terrible hot flash that lasted a few minutes. Nothing I couldn’t handle. Then, I got really mad at Howard over something STUPID. I don’t even remember what the fight was about, but halfway through my yelling fit I realized I was being unreasonable and started laughing.  I was feeling some side effects of the clomid.
I felt great about it, this was our month…
Everything was going so well, no spotting and it just seemed so smooth!! Now the dreaded 2 weeks. We were in Laughlin, NV for a company trip for my husband's work...I started my period.
We decided not to try Artificial the third time. It is very stressful (what part of infertility isn’t stressful??!!) We had been paying for everything with cash because my insurance didn’t cover anything to do with infertility. I called up the doctor’s office to schedule an appointment to meet with the doctor. We talked all about IVF and then met with the IVF coordinator. It was TOTAL OVERLOAD of information, but we both felt great about it.
One day at work I was looking at some blogs of women who have done IVF 4 or 5 times. I felt ill…with how much money we are paying, I kept thinking… THIS HAS TO WORK! On the way home from work, I started sobbing, I was stressing about the monetary value of it all and it was really getting to me. I called my husband. He told me that we’d be in the same situation we are in now, except we wouldn’t have money. Oh it was so nice to hear that.  Through our trials of infertility we have become so close and have such a deeper love for each other. When I got home and we knelt down and prayed asking for feeling of peace if what we were doing is right. Immediately I felt peace. I am so blessed to have a loving Heavenly Father. I have such a huge testimony about the power of personal prayer.

We went to the doctor yesterday to get blood work, measurements of my uterus and a class on how to give the shots. We got our blood work done, no big deal. Then they took me in for my ultrasound, I thought no big deal. He first did a swab, not bad, and then wanted to do measurements of my uterus, not bad…then he checked my ovaries, found the first one, not bad…then OH MY GOODNESS as he looked for or at the other one, it hurt SO bad!! I don’t know why it hurt, maybe because he was trying to find it, but there was definitely pain! The doctor said everything looks good though. My uterus is in a good place and the transfer should be easy. (yeah!!)
After about a week of doing my injections I only had 7-8. They were expecting more like 15-20...so that was discouraging. I went back 2 days later and I hadn't grown anymore, so to keep on taking the meds and trying to get more wasn't an option. At that time, the doctor said we can quit and try again in another cycle, but we could have the same issue of me not producing a lot of follicles.  It was very upsetting, and a very tough decision, we'd already used $1000 of meds and we'd have to buy those again, and we may just get the same results. Not that this is all about money, but it's definatly a factor!  The doctor recommended that we go ahead with things. We felt good about and continued on.

I continued going to the doctor until they said I was ready and then did my trigger shot. On Friday, September 25th, we had our egg retrieval. I was pretty nervous about it, but everyone is so nice and I was put under pretty quickly, so I didn't have a chance to be too nervous. Things didn’t go as smoothly as we would have wanted...they only got 3 eggs. Needless to say we were VERY disappointed and I was VERY emotional. I tried to keep my cool at the doctor's office, but that didn't work out very well. They called me later that afternoon and told me they only had three good eggs and had fertilized them. Then on Saturday I got another call telling me that 2 fertilized normally, but the 3rd didn't. I seriously haven't prayed so much in one weekend. I just prayed my heart out for those two little embryos. It was quite the stressful weekend.
Then we got a call Sunday morning from the doctor and we STILL had 2 embryos!  We were pretty excited and relieved! They are both graded B one has divided 4 times and the other 3.

Monday (9/28/09) we went in to have the embryos implanted. When we got there we were shown a picture of our embryos and they were now graded a B and a C, one hadn't developed as much as they wanted, but we still have an average (C) and a slightly above average (B) embryo.

After we went in for the implantation, I had to be on bed rest for 3 days. Which sounds like a lot more fun that it was. Weirdly enough my back was hurting from laying down so much! haha

If I thought that the 2 weeks were terrible with doing Aritficial Insemination...it doesn't even compare to the stress of the waiting for the news of IVF.  Its so hard to wait to find out if your dreams are coming true. 

I guess long story short...I didn't get a baby out of the whole ordeal. I had a miscarriage. I got a call on telling me that my test came back positive, but that my HCG levels were very low. Which could mean a miscarriage or it could just mean my levels are low. I was devastated. I knew then that I wasn't really pregnant and left work and cried all night. It was such a dark and terrible night. 
My husband came home from work about 8:30 that night from work and was just so positive. He just knew I was still pregnant, which helped because I was down in the dumps.
Two days later I went back for another blood test to see if my levels double. My husband and I spent the day together trying hard not to think about our fate.  We watched movies and fixed lunch and about 1:30pm, I got the call...the results were negative.
The biggest thing I keep asking is why? Why did this not work? We had so many people on our side praying for us that this would work. Why did we have such a peaceful feeling to go forward with IVF when I wasn't producing eggs and things didn't seem to be working out. Why? Why? Why??
I don't know how or when or if we'll get a baby, but life goes on and we just have to keep living and keeping the hope alive.