IVF #3 or Adoption? (Maybe both)

IVF #3 or Adoption??

That is the question

     We have thought about the information our Dr. gave us quit a bit. Right now without a lot of answers on what is actually going on we don't have a lot to make a decision on. We have considered a donor embryo as well as a gestational mother, but we can't make that decision until we find out if it is my eggs that are bad or if I can't carry a pregnancy. However, even if we do find out the problem we have considered adoption heavily. There are so many children that need a good home to be raised in and we feel that we could provide that. With that said I don't want to completely give up on the idea of having our own children with our genes either. We have chosen to take the next step and put it out there that we are looking to adopt a child, as well as move forward with the next round of IVF and hopefully we will have success either way. We know there are more adoptive parents out there than there are children and because of this it is extremely hard to be placed with a child. We also know that it is impossible for us to go through an adoption agency because of the expense. We have put so much time and money into IVF there is just no way we can go through an adoption agency too. We have found that our best option is to just spread the word. We have been advised to let everyone know. Post it on facebook, write a blog (check :) ), tell everyone we can possibly think of and hope that somebody knows somebody that is looking for people like us. We haven't given up hope on IVF completely, but we are ready to move forward with something that looks a little more promising. At this time we ask that you please share our story and get the word out. We want nothing more than to have a family, and would be thrilled to meet with a parent / parents that is looking to adopt their child. Please help us find a baby! 

     It has been quit a while since I have written on my blog. I had a rough go there for a while. I'm the type of person that needs to have a plan for everything, and all of this was definitely not a part of my plan. It has been difficult to try to decide what step to take next. I have checked into a lot of different options. The top three are foster care, adoption, and another round of IVF. We have decided, as much as foster parenting can bring so many blessings, it's just not right for us at this moment. The main goal for foster care is to get the children back with their biological parents. I just couldn't handle bringing children into my home and caring for them, loving them, and then them having to go back to their biological parents. It is an amazing thing that people can do and I admire them for doing it, but I personally could not handle that when I want so badly a forever family.
    There is a lot more to adoption then I think anyone ever thought. Home studies, hearings, interviews, medical exams, financial exams, etc. Not to count the thought of the countless stressful hours that would go by during the process. We are not eliminating adoption by any means, but after finding out more information, I do believe that it is going to be a very stressful long process, especially when we are trying to find a baby on our own, but hopefully if that's what is right for us it will be worth it in the end! Luckily we have actually had a couple people contact us about a few different options. Nothing to jump on yet, but it's a start and we are forever grateful that our friends and family have kept us in mind when they come across a possible adoption!
    We have started our next IVF cycle. (big sigh)! I'm not sure about it to be honest. I'm not really excited about it. I don't really want to have to go through all those meds to get a negative result again, but at this point there is no easy answer, and this seems like the easiest, less expensive option to take at the present time until we are able to find a possible adoption. We both would like an answer whether it be I can't carry, or my eggs are not good. Hopefully if all else fails we will at least get that so we can have even more options to consider! I will be sure to keep you updated while we go through this next cycle! 
   I kind of had a break down a little while ago. All of this was getting to much for me. I was trying to find a lot of information about all of the options and it became very overwhelming. Finally, after a little advice from my husband, I kneeled down and I asked God to help me carry the burdens. I asked that he help me to try not to analyze what I need to do and just show me. I'm hoping by putting this in God's hands our answer will come here soon. I know that God has a plan, I just have a hard time not knowing my plan when I'm such a planner. One thing is for sure, I recognized a while ago I needed to learn patience. This has definitely helped me to learn patience. lol.
    One good thing that has come out of this is recently I realized how many blessings I actually have. I have the most amazing husband anyone could ask for. I have a beautiful family. My sister in law just announced that she is having another child. That will make it so we have 13 nieces and nephews. I love each and every one of them so much! I have brothers and sisters, two moms and two dads that show us their unconditional love every step of the way through our trials and of course our dogs that are just so sweet. These are just a few of so many blessings I have Speaking of our dogs we just got a new puppy. He is so cute! He is a great addition to our family. He is a boxer / bulldog mix. I will have to post pictures soon, but I'm excited that we have extended our furry family a little more. Now if only we could get us a baby we would be set! :)  

April 2014

     Ok, so it has been forever since I have been on here! I promised I would keep you all updated and I haven't. I'm so sorry! So much has happened since I wrote last. As far as my family and fur babies go, everything is great. Our newest addition is a little spit fire. He is so full of energy. He wears my other two dogs, my husband, and me out, but we love him. It helped me to have him while we were going through another round of IVF to help keep my mind occupied on other things. :)

     As far as our IVF cycle goes, I was able to get through it once again. Nothing really changed as far as the process, but we changed up some medicine dosages as well as added another medication when I had my egg retrieval. Basically everything else was the same. After the egg retrieval we had many stressful days! The day of the retrieval we got a phone call saying they had to do a procedure called ICSI. This is a procedure they do a lot so it wasn't anything new to the Dr's, however in the last three IVF cycles we had done we had never had to do it so we were not expecting it. We didn't really feel that it was a good start to the process, but we said lots of prayers and waited five days awaiting our results. When transfer day came we were terrified. Last time we came into the office for our transfer, we were instead lead into our Dr's office and told that none of our embryos had lived and we wouldn't be doing a transfer. My appointment was at 3:00 p.m. When I arrived they asked me if I had taken my meds. I thought this was a good sign since they didn't make me take them the last time I came, but I was still very nervous. A very long time went by before they came and got me. It was about 4:00 p.m. before I finally went back. When the nurse came out I knew that was a good sign. Whenever a nurse comes to get you, things are pretty normal. It's the dreaded white Dr coat you don't want to see come and get you. :) She lead us back to the transfer room. Our Dr. peeked her head in and apologized to us for the wait. She knew we were super nervous and told us that everything looked great. She told me to prepare for the transfer and she would be in shortly to talk to us. We were very relieved to hear some good news! Our Dr came in and she showed us pictures of our embryos. She said that four were really good and could be transferred that day and they were still waiting on a couple to see if they would progress anymore. We discussed how many embryos we wanted to transfer and felt that two was the magic number. We knew there were a lot of risks but with my history we felt that this would give us our best possible outcome. We proceeded with transferring two and shortly after I got up and we went home. I was on bed rest for the rest of the day and for 4 full days afterwards. Bed rest is only required by our Dr for 2 but because my transfer was on a Wednesday and I had the weekend to relax as well, I did. We were going to do anything we possibly could to help this one work! 

      On day 8 after our transfer I started to spot a little. I got really upset and the only thing I could think about was, it didn't work. It just so happened my parents came to visit us right when this happened so I had a breakdown with them at my house. They tried to calm me down and told me that I didn't know for sure it was over and to still have faith. That night was very discouraging. I felt like it was all over. I told Jake that if I bled through the night then I knew for sure it was over, but if I didn't I would take a pregnancy test in the morning to see what it said. I woke up the next morning and to my surprise I hadn't bled at all, so I took a pregnancy test. When I seen the results I was a little confused. Day 9 after our transfer I got a positive pregnancy test. I looked at Jake and I told him that it must be wrong. He got a little smile on his face and said, maybe it's not over yet. The next day I was supposed to have my first beta test at the Dr's office. This test would confirm whether or not I really was pregnant so we decided to wait until then to read any more into it. Test day came and to my surprise once again our Dr called and told us that we were pregnant! I was excited but confused because of the spotting. They told me that it was very common to spot with the medication I was on because of irritation. It was phenomenal news, however I think I was in shock because I was expecting the worst news and this time for a change we got better news than expected! My beta numbers were higher than they had ever been. We hoped that was a good sign, but we were just glad to get through the first big step. 10 days after our first beta we had our second beta. This is the one we dreaded the most. We had never had good results on our second beta before. I would always miscarry before we could every get that far, so we were extremely nervous. Of course I couldn't control myself and keep the pee on the stick tests away, so I tested about every other day to see if it was still positive. The morning of my second beta I did get a positive pee on a stick test, but we were still very nervous. Our Dr called with the second beta results and the numbers were rising! That meant I was still pregnant!! We had hit a milestone. I never had high numbers at the second beta! We were so excited. We knew that anything could happen, but we made it further than we ever had and that was worth celebrating! We told everyone in our families that we made it past the second beta. Everyone was so excited for us! They did one more beta test a few days later and the third test also confirmed the numbers were rising appropriately! This was the best new we had heard!! We were ecstatic. By this time I was starting to feel a little bit of the pregnancy symptoms. I kept playing mind games with myself asking myself if it was really pregnancy symptoms or if I was just making myself feel like that because I wanted to be pregnant so bad. It turns out that it was really pregnancy symptoms. :) 

       The next step was to have an ultrasound at 7 weeks. This would determine how good the heartbeat was as well as if we had multiples or not. When we went into our ultrasound we were very nervous. I was having a hard time breathing I was so nervous. I was super sick the Tuesday and Wednesday before our ultrasound. Our ultrasound was on a Friday. That Thursday and Friday morning I felt much better than the previous days so I was worried my symptoms were fading and I was loosing the baby / babies. This on top of, we never wanted to hear a heartbeat so badly in our lives made us both terrified. We were excited, but terrified. Well the time came and as we were watching the ultrasound screen, the nurse said, well I see two sacs and two heartbeats. Jake and I just looked at each other. Jake got out of his seat and grabbed my hand. When I looked up at him he had tears in his eyes. The nurse measured the babies and we got to hear their heartbeats for the very first time. We were in shock at how amazing that sound was. It was one of the best moments of my life. We got to print pictures of our ultrasound. When I went to the nurses station to check out all of the nurses were so happy for us. The Dr's office and staff had been so amazing throughout our whole process, and every single one of them wanted us to have a happy ending, so they were so excited. When Jake and I got to the car hugged each other. We were the happiest we had ever been! I immediately called my mom and dad. They were ecstatic! Jake called his parents and they were also ecstatic. We sent a picture of our ultrasound to our brothers and sisters and our phones were blowing up with messages. It was an amazing experience! 

     We were completely astonished that we made it to 7 weeks, and we have twins! The next ultrasound was scheduled for 9 weeks. Our Reproductive Endocrinologist will do a final ultrasound at 9 weeks, then they release you to a regular OB. Three days after our 7 week ultrasound I went to the bathroom and noticed that I had a little bit of spotting again. I called our Dr and they said that unless it was a lot not to worry about it. I made it to 11:00 a.m. and then I started to have a lot of spotting. I called and they immediately scheduled me an ultrasound at 2:00. I went home and put my feet up and waited for Jake to come home so he could go with me to the Dr. I didn't really know what to think. I wanted to stay positive, but I was super scared that it was over again. Jake got home and we talked. He gave me a blessing and we left to go to the Dr. We both felt like everything was ok, but my body was telling me otherwise. When our Dr came in I explained to her what was going on. She tried to find out where the bleeding was coming from and then did another ultrasound. When she did the ultrasound we saw two beating hearts and heard two very strong heartbeats. She said that everything looked really good and that it's not uncommon for a women to bleed throughout the pregnancy as long as there is no tissue and cramping as well as high fevers with the bleeding. We were so relieved. The bleeding continued for a little less than a week. It wasn't extreme, but I wanted it to stop just so I could have piece of mind again. Finally the bleeding stopped! 

     Our 9 week appointment came. It was a bittersweet day. We had been with our Dr throughout so much and this would be the last of her we would see for hopefully a very long time, unless of course it was to bring our little miracles in to meet her. :) She did the final ultrasound and everything looked perfect. They were both growing the way they should and the heartbeats sounded great. She told me to discontinue the use of progesterone. (Wahoo, no more meds)! We received all of our final information we needed to take to our OB and said our goodbyes. We were so happy that everything was going so well, but as I said it was bitter sweet to leave. 

    Our regular OB scheduled our first appointment with him at 10 weeks 4 days. When we went in we met with the nurse and did all the paperwork, they then took down my history and then our Dr. came in. We talked to him for quite a while, then he did an exam and an ultrasound. At the ultrasound we were able to hear both our babies heartbeats again as well as see them. Our Dr. said that everything looked great. They both have their own sacs so they are fraternal not identical. This is a good thing since it minimizes a lot of risks that are associated with twins. They gave us a due date of November 1, 2014 and said that it may be sooner, but it would definitely be no later than this. After our exam the nurse tried to take a blood sample from me. Well of course, because no one but my hero Abby can get blood from me it was torture. They poked me several times, then finally decided that they couldn't do it and gave me an order to go to the lab. I still haven't worked up enough guts to go yet. I really need to, but I hate anyone taking my blood because it's so stinking hard. I guess I will have to get used to it though, because it's going to be happening a lot in the next few months. :)

      Today we are at 11 weeks 6 days. Tomorrow will be the start of our final week in the first trimester. We are so excited to get the first trimester under our belt. We feel like this is it and we are finally going to get our babies / family we have always wanted. We know that anything can happen, but we have never made even close to as far as we are today, so we feel extremely blessed. I'm not sure why it has taken so long for this to finally work for us, but I'm so glad that we didn't give up. I'm so glad that our family and friends supported us through all of this and kept us going. I'm so glad our Dr didn't give up on us either. Everyone has been so supportive and we would have never experienced all of this if we wouldn't have tried one more time. I pray every single day that things will keep progressing as they should, but I have more faith than ever knowing that everything happens for a reason, and for some reason the right time for us wasn't until now and now we are experiencing the most amazing thing we have ever experienced. I can't wait to continue our journey and I can't wait to hold our two precious angels in my arms and finally kiss our blessings. Thank you so much to all of you that have said a prayer, donated, or just simply been there for us. We can't thank you enough and we will keep you posted throughout our journey. This time I promise! :) I think it's probably time to start a new page. As I post throughout my pregnancy I will be posting updates on my Pregnant and loving it page. Check there for updates! :)