Adoption: A new path to start on.

Today I mailed in our adoption application and paperwork. It's on it's way. I'm excited to start this new journey but I still long for a child that I can carry, that is part of me and my husband. Even though we still have two frozen embryo's to try I guess I just don't have that good of a feeling about it. I've tried to stay positive and was just starting to get into a good place with being infertile for the first time in two years but had a little break down the other day. A reminder that I have been unsuccessful in getting pregnant and unsuccessful in just about everything else in my life. I just started the job search and it's going slow as I expected but I feel like I need to leave this place because I will never be given a chance to do anything else where I am no matter how hard I try. I'm having issues loosing weight, it's coming off but way to slow to even matter and if I can't lose weight I will never get my body working in the right way. I can tell just from being off all types of fertility meds for the last month and a half that my body still isn't working right, I tried to start running again today but my knee was killing me so I didn't get very far. I know I have a lot to be thankful for in my life but it feels like the few things I really want I can't have or get.

I'm ready to start the adoption process but I'm not ready to be judged by people to see if other people think I will be fit to be a mother but I'm willing to do it because I know I will be. I'm ready for a family and now we just wait for confirmation that our adoption application was received and that we were approved to start the next steps in the process.

Struggling in more ways then just fertility

Ever since the IVF failed I have been trying so hard not to think about anything that has to do with trying to get pregnant. It's so very hard to do when it seems like every turn you make there is a pregnant woman or a child or a baby... I know Halloween is still over a month away but I'm dreading it. Sure, I love to decorate and I will admit that I found a bag of decorations while searching for my birth certificate last night (more of this issues later) and I had to put them out today. I just love the holidays and getting to put up decorations and give the house a different look for a while. However, last Halloween I though passing out candy would be a great idea and lost of fun to see the neighbors and their kids until this sweet little girl dressed as Jessie from Toy Story showed up at the door. She was so precious and I just couldn't take it anymore. I broke down, I couldn't pass out any more candy. I wanted to be the mom with the child going door to door, but I wasn't. It was a horrible feeling and I never want to feel that way again. But... I'm sure I will, I'm sure between now and whenever we do have children there will be many more hard times on my end.

Some days are better then others. Today seems to be one of those days where all that keeps coming into my head is when will it be our turn? Most days following the failed IVF I have been able to keep my mind on other things and try to stay positive and then there are days like today. I'm struggling with another big decision I need to make, that I want to make and I know the right choice but I'm scared to just do it. Pretty much everyone knows I can't stand my job. I work my ass off for this company, I do what they say and more. I try and try to get ahead and then I never do. It's always the person who knows someone, or who's parents work at the same company who get the promotion or the move to the new position. After the rejection of the last position I applied for I just can't do it anymore. I'm so miserable. My work life is effecting my personal life, I'm sad all the time (sometimes because of fertility but mostly because of work). I get so bored at work, it doesn't stimulate me. And on top of that we are treated like children. they watch every step we take and every move we make. They change our breaks and lunch times and don't care when we have to work over 5 hours of taking phone calls and getting yelled at with out a break because it's all "Customer First" but we are their customer's and they are in no way putting us first and it is just getting so hard to deal with. I know I need to try and get a new job but I'm so scared that if I do the company will not have fertility coverage and I wont be able to afford to keep trying to IVF and keep working with my RE. This though scares me to death that I would have to just give up on trying to have a child of my own, a piece of me and my husband and our families.  Most importantly a piece of my parents, a new extension of our side of the family. I just can't give that up but i know to be happy I have to leave at some point.  I did get some good news from my parents the other day, the company that my father works for covers fertility, I was so happy to hear this... but now I have to get a job offer from them and I don't know if that will happen or if there will ever be a job I am qualified for there but I'm going to keep trying. I think if I can finally get out of this job that I'm at I can relax more and my stress levels will go down and I would be so much more happy which is always a good thing when you are trying to have a baby.

I have made the first steps in this new scary journey of trying to get a new job and applied for a position at another company. I pray that I can at least get an interview and maybe even the job, I would love to have a new job at a new company where I feel that I am respected and treated fairly. And of course at a place where i don't hate waking up in the mornings because I have to do a boring, repetitive job for 8 hours a day and deal with people who tell me I have so much potential but will never give me a shot. Pardon my french but I have come to realize everything that has been told to me over the last 4 years is a STEAMING PILE OF SHIT! and I'm done trying, it's time to hopefully move on soon.

I'm trying to take this TTC break and work on trying to be happy and trying to lose weight (which is working, slowly but surely, I'm trying to hard to keep it all up) and trying to get a new job and most importantly trying to not be so sad and depressed about not being able to get pregnant.

Every day there seems to be another one... and I'm still empty.

I'm still struggling with the failed IVF from over two weeks ago. Even though I'm doing much better then two weeks ago I still feel so empty inside. I'm not crying every day and I'm even not thinking about it 24/7 anymore but when I do it hurts.  I'm trying to deal with this loss (to me it is a loss, there was a growing embryo, the start of life, and it didn't make it) and as much as I want to be happy for everyone who is getting pregnant these days it is still really hard. I am happy for those who are blessed with children and a family but it's hard to see sometimes. The last few days that I have gotten on facebook I have seen someone new announcing their pregnancy, people who are my age, people who I went to school with and that brings back all the horrible thoughts of why not me? Why can't I get pregnant? Why can't I have a family? I try and try and try to push those thoughts back and replace them with positive thoughts... "I will have a baby", "I will get pregnant", "We will have a family..." Lately those have been staying around much longer then the negative ones but those negative ones always seem to show their ugly heads sometimes.

I had sent an email to a local fertility support group and was planning on going to their meeting, maybe talking to other people in person with the same issues as me might help out. But I chickened out. Every time I try to talk about this with anyone, I start to cry. I'm over crying, that's all I have been doing and it really gives a girl a bad head ache to cry all the time. I couldn't bare to start crying in front of complete strangers. I don't know if a support group would help me or not but for now I will keep to this blog to let my feelings out. Even if no one really reads this, it's sort of therapeutic for me in some ways but in other's it just brings up those bad feeling and thoughts of failure.  My support group for now is my family, my amazing parents who would do anything for me and I feel so blessed to be their child because I really do feel that they are the best parents in the world. And my amazing husband, who loves me the way I am and loves me for me. He doesn't ask me to change or do things differently, he just supports me.

I have signed us up to go to another adoption information meeting in the next few days. At first I was against adoption, I didn't want to raise a child and have them want to go find their birth parents when they are older and leave me alone again with no children after raising them. Over the last two years of trying to have a child I have grown more open to the option of adoption but not an open adoption. I want to be the one and only mother or "mommy" in my child's life. I pray every night that I can give Jonathan a child of his own, a child that is made of him and I but if the Lord wants us to adopt that that is what we will have to do.

Even though I am more open to adoption, part of me still feels that even if we have all of our children through adoption I will still have that empty feeling inside of me, that "your a failure" feeling, that "your not a complete woman because you cant bare children" feeling. I pray that isn't the case if we do end up adopting but its all so scary.

Until that time comes I'm going to try and go back to my happy place, my place of content in not having a child yet and a place of hope that one day I will.

Big Fat FAIL

So here is what has been going on the past few weeks with the IVF. Our egg retrieval was scheduled for August 10th at 8 in the morning. They prepared me with the IV in my hand and walked me to the operating room. I laid on the table and all sorts of thoughts went through my head. At my last scan the doctor thought she would be able to retrieve about 15 to 16 eggs. With Jonathan by my side they started the procedure. I was overly excited but scared at the same time. Will there be good eggs, how many will they be able to get, will they fertilize and grow? At the same time I was excited knowing that there were eggs and they would be fertilized and I was so hopeful. As the nurse pumped me full of pain meds we watched on the ultrasound screen as she went and got the eggs. It seemed like I was there forever and all I heard was 3 eggs. "3 eggs" I thought... "But she said she could get around 15, I've been laying here forever and there are only three eggs???" More pain meds, more eggs, more pain meds, more eggs. The end result was 17 eggs. More then we expected. I had high hopes that most of them would fertilize. I had to stay at the operating center for a while before they would let me go. Before I left they made me take two more pain pills... We will just say that the drive home was not the best car ride I have ever been on. And I'm sure that the side of 465 was not to thrilled when I made Jonathan pull over on the side of the road.... I think you can guess what happened next.

Once home I had to lay at a 45 degree angle for the first 24-48 hours but I only made it maybe 12 hours... Due to the high levels of pain meds I was given, I slept pretty much all day until about 7pm. At this time I had to get up and prepaire the injection and put my estrogen patches on. As I was preparing the injection I started getting very light headed so I sat down for a moment to regroup. I finally got the injection ready and Jonathan proceeded to give it to me... Then I walked out of the bathroom to go back to the recliner I had to stay in. The next thing I remember is Jonathan yelling my name and waking up in the middle of the bedroom floor thinking "why am I laying flat?? I'm not supposed to be laying flat, what is going on..." I had passed out. I immediately stood up and started back towards the chair but again didn't make it, again, I passed out in the hallway.  Finally I made it back to the chair where I started to sweat and was having difficulty breathing. Before we had left the clinic they had given me a sheet of paper with an emergency phone number on it, we called and it was disconnected! So we called the doctors regular office number and the emergency line advised someone would call us back shortly... An hour passed and we called back, finally someone came on the line and told Jonathan to get me to the Emergency Room... So we headed to Clarian West where the put me in a room with and IV, they took some blood and made me pee in a cup... I could tell the ER doctor had no idea what was going on, I think I am more schooled in infertility then she is. Several hours later I had to have a cat scan where they told me that I had excessive fluid in my abdomen which I could have told them without the cat scan. They said they were going to admit me... The OB/GYN on call then came in the room and said that I could be in the hospital for over a week because my ovaries were Hyper stimulated from the IVF procedures. He also told us that hyper stimulation is not common and they could not treat me at Clarian West. They had to move me to IU downtown and I had to be transported in an Ambulance. Another few hours later the ambulance finally arrived and then we were downtown. My doctors office is at IU downtown so she finally arrived around 7 in the morning. One of the first things I told her was that her emergency phone number was disconnected! She told me it wasn't as bad as the other doctors were telling us and around 5pm that night I was able to go home.

Over the next few days my stomach was so swollen and puffed up, i could barley move and walk, all I wanted to do was sleep, i hurt so bad. On Sunday were going to go out to a nice dinner with my parents and right before they were going to pick us up I started getting light headed and sweaty again, it wasn't as bad as the day of the operation so I went to dinner but we had to cut it short as I was not doing good. The next day we were supposed to have our transfer, I was scared that being so sick it wasn't a good idea.

Monday came and I was even more sick, I was going from being cold to hot and sweaty, I couldn't eat anything because every time I would sit up I would throw up. We went to the clinic anyways so the doctor could check me out and let us know if it was still a good idea to do the transfer. I laid down in the bed for a while as the doctor was working with someone else still. I started to feel better, but laying down was the only way I did feel good. The doctor came in and checked me out, she seemed to think everything was okay as I didn't have any fluid in my lungs. She never really answered out question about why I was light headed and throwing up all day. but she felt it was okay to do the transfer.

Out of the 17 eggs we got, 9 were large enough to fertilize but only three were ready by day 5, one was grade A+ and the other two A's. In my mind I was thinking, 3... that's it?!?! Out of 17 we only got three all of this for three?? But also at least we got three, some people may not get any. So we transferred back the grade A+ embryo. After an hour of laying down I got up and they got me a wheel chair to take me out and again, more throwing up. I was so nervous that me getting sick had ruined everything. we went home and I just rested. I didn't do much of anything. I was so sick and hurting. It took me over two weeks from the retrieval to even be able to stand up long enough to just take a showing.

Anyone who has had trouble with fertility knows that what is referred to as the two week wait is the longest two weeks of your life. I've been through almost 2 years of two week waits now, one would think I would be used to it, but ever 2 week wait is new and different. I remember the doctor saying that if the IVF took that my ovaries might stay enlarged for the next 5 to 7 weeks and they may continue to be sore and hurt... That's when I knew something wasn't right.

About a week after the transfer I woke up and I wasn't hurting anymore... I knew it didn't work, no one wanted to believe me. But it's my body and I have been going through these fertility treatments for almost 2 years. I just knew it didn't work but I tried to stay positive. Even after I started to have some spotting for a few days I was trying to be positive but at the same time I was being realistic. I knew this was yet another period coming and another negative pregnancy test. My period hadn't started by the day I was to get my blood work done so I went Monday morning and I called the nurse to let her know to expect the results... She called me a few hours later and I was right, Big Fat NEGATIVE. The IVF didn't work and I was yet again not pregnant. I always though for sure IVF would work, I mean the egg gets fertilized and then implanted... Why didn't my egg implantation take? What is so wrong with me that I can't get pregnant. Am i not meant to be a mom? I feel like a failure as a woman and a wife. I mean the woman is supposed to be able to give her husband children right??? So why can't I do this one little thing? Why can't I get pregnant and give my husband a child and my parents grandchildren?

There are so many emotions that a person goes through when dealing with infertility. Your try to stay positive but negative thoughts keep getting in the way. I was so hopeful when i found out that my insurance would cover all IVF procedures. I thought, "this is it, we are going to have a family, we are going to have a child of our own, this just has to work..." But it didn't. I asked the nurse why it might not have worked? They didn't really give me an answer. Sometimes I really don't like the office that I am working with, I feel that they know what they are doing medically and they are always using medical terminology that I just don't understand but they are not the best at being personable and caring and understanding. They don't take the time to explain what is going on in layman's terms so that you understand. The only time they did this was when I would ask them to explain or give a definition of what in the world they were talking about.

"So now what..." I can't even get pregnant with IVF, they put a growing embryo inside of my and it didn't stick... I still wonder why me? Why am i having so many problems. I try and keep my faith in God that he will give us a family one day but then those negative thoughts start to creep back in. I try to erase them from my mind but every so often here they come again. "Your a failure, you suck, your to fat and you will never have a baby" I'm trying to not let this effect me but it does. You can't understand what someone who is dealing with infertility is going through unless you have gone through it yourself.

I'm trying to just relax and take it one day at a time. I want this so bad, i want to have a family and I want to be able to give that gift to my husband as well and i can't help continuing to think "When will that happen"? When will it be my turn to celebrate? When will it be my time to be over the moon excited about starting a family... When will it be our turn to celebrate a blessing together and with out family??

I don't know when that will happen or if it will, but I'm trying to keep my faith and keep my hope alive. We still have two frozen embryos to try. The lab that we have been using is backed up according to the nurse so she said it would be best to try a frozen IVF cycle in January sometime... It seems so far away but it might be good. To take a break and not always be thinking about trying to get pregnant and when to take the pills and the shots and always having to go to the doctors office and get scans and just take some time to focus on the little family we have right now, just me and my husband and enjoy our time together and just continue to hope and pray that this next cycle might work.

Until later,
Ashleigh

Feeling groggy but tomorrow is the day

The last few days haven't been the best for me. I have been tired, I have had head achs and my ovaries are so large that I feel them every time I move, they are so tender that I can't wait for tomorrow.

A lot of things are going through my mind. I'm trying to stay as stress free as possible. I'm ready for the next step tomorrow which is when the doctor will go in and get all the eggs that she can. I had a scan on Monday and there are about 30 follicles growing and the doctor said she thinks she should be able to get about 16 or 17 eggs. Not ever follicle is big enough to have a mature egg in it but 16 or 17 sounds like a good number to me, especially since they might not all fertilize and even if they do all fertilize they might not all grow as they should. I'm trying not to be anxious and just have faith that this is going to work for us and this is what God's plan was for us. I am so ready for tomorrow morning to see what we end up getting.

I also feel blessed to have tips and suggestion from a friend of mine who has just gone through IVF. It's nice to read message boards and everything but to know someone personally who has gone through what I am going through and it has worked for them is a great confidence booster! I'm thankful for all the time and advice she has given me and hope and pray that our outcome is just as good as hers and her husbands.

That's all for now, just saying some prayers that everything goes good tomorrow morning and that maybe after this I will start feeling better but today is the only day that I don't take any injections starting tomorrow we are on to the next round of shots and pills and patches!

Ovary Overload

Just an update, I'm pretty tired today and don't have the energy to type a whole lot.

Today was scan three, things are looking good and on track. We may or may not be pushing things back just a few days which is normal but we will know more on Monday with scan number 4. That is all I have, very short today.

I'm a human pincushion... but all is on track!

This morning was a little emotional for me. I had several things on my plate. The biggest though was my first ultrasound and blood work. I was nervous that things wouldn't be where they needed to be and our calendar would be off. I really want to stay 100% on the calendar if possible (Even though the nurse said most people don't got 100% to the date) because I already have all my days off of work requested and placed in my schedule at work. It may be difficult to get these moves it may not. I think it depends on the mood of the day sometimes at my work place.

I don't know how the blood work came out but the ultrasound was just where it needs to be. Lots of small follicles on each of my ovaries.  So now we move on to the next step. Reduce the injections I was taking to once a day and start a new type of injection twice a day. This injection is the one they say can make me moody. So far, no side effects from the first injection the nurse gave me this morning. I'm really hoping that it stays that way for the entire time that I have to take this medication. So in this phase I will be taking three injections (I feel like a human pincushion...) As well as the 5 pills I was already taking and then add on top of that one more pill that I have to take twice a day. Right now I'm just trying to keep my emotions in check and not get to nervous about everything that is going on. Ultrasound and blood work number two is next wednesday.  Hopefully all those little follicles are starting to fatten up and grow to nice mature eggs for the next step.

Here's to everything going and staying on the right track! Till next time.