A Busy Weekend!

Our babies Chloe and Hank checking things out!


Jonathan taking a break from putting in our irrigation system.


Riley and his PaPa riding the Golf Cart


Riley enjoying an afternoon in Crenshaw County!

On Saturday Jonathan and I went down to my grandparent's with my brother and our 2 nephews, Riley and Grayden. Jonathan and Tab had to work on the green fields while me and the boys spent some time with my grandparents and their great-grandparents. We had a fun day. Riley loved riding on the golf cart with his PaPa and Grayden loved swinging with his Granny.

On Sunday, Jonathan starting putting in our irrigation system. He worked for like 12 hours straight by himself. He was exhausted that evening. He came home tonight and almost finished up with Tab helping. I watched Grayden while they worked and my mom, Grayden's Granna stopped by to visit.

I thought since we did not have any "baby news" I would update you on some other things going on with us.

Follow Up

Today was our follow up with Dr. Houserman regarding our failed IVF cycle. Overall it was a good appointment. They haven't given up on us yet! The first thing she said that all the doctor's, nurses, and embryologists discussed were things that went wrong. She said everything looked great up until our Egg Retrieval and it was a huge disappointment for everyone and she said that was even a understatement for what happened that day. She said no doctor wants to give up on a 25 year old doing IVF.

One thing that could've gone wrong was the HCG trigger shot. This is the shot I took 2 days before my Egg Retrieval. This injection is given in the muscle. It is taken to help start the process of ovulation. This helps the doctor's retrieve the eggs the day of the retrieval. There is a possibility that I needed more units or that the needle did not go deep enough in my muscle so my body did not recognize all the medication that had been injected. This was a surprise to both and Jonathan and I because we have done the HCG shot 2 other times with IUI. I'm pretty sure it was injected correct, but whether or not by body recognized it or not is a mystery.

The second thing is that I may have empty follicle syndrome. This is really scary to think about. The only way we will know is if we do another IVF cycle and I only have a few mature eggs again. This is the hard part there is NOTHING they can do for this. The only option she mentioned is if money was endless for a couple for them to keep trying over and over again and them lucking out one time and it working. Who has money for that? I'm pretty sure the only other thing they can do, and she did not mention this is using donor eggs. This is something I'm sure she does not want to talk about at this point and neither do we.

So our next step! We will be trying the "old fashioned way" while taking my injectable medications to help me produce at least a few healthy eggs each month. We will also have a post coital test coming up soon. This is a test that just makes sure my body is not fighting with Jonathan's sperm. If this does not work for us we will be doing IVF again after the first of the year. This will give both of us time to get healthy,time to enjoy the Holidays with our families, and just focus on all the blessings we already have in our lives.

Overall we are feeling OK about our appointment. Some great news that we received today is that Jonathan's semen analysis from our IVF cycle was normal. Praise The Lord! This is the reason we won't be doing IUI with our injectables. It won't make a difference from us doing IUI or the Old Fashion Way.More good news we got today is that we had a 100% fertilization rate. It is usually at 70%. Fertilization means how many of my eggs were fertilized with Jonathan's sperm.

Please continue to pray for us to blessed with a beautiful miracle. We know in our hearts it will happen. Like Dr. Honea said at my Embryo Transfer we may not know how or when it happens, but just that it does!

Please pray for all of the doctors, nurses, embryologists and the entire ART staff for all the work they have done for us and all the other couple's that have been blessed enough to meet them.

"Rethinking Infertility"

Last week the Today Show on NBC did a series of Infertility segments. I was unable to watch them as they came on later in the morning, but I went on their website to see them. I thought I would share them with all of you. It goes through different aspects of infertility and Eastern and Western Treatments for infertility. Enjoy!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26640260#26640260"

Our follow up is in 3 days. I will post on Wednesday if not before then.

Family Time!

I'm sorry it's been a little while since I checked in. There has not been a lot going on around here. I've kind of kept to myself besides spending time with family. We spent all Saturday with my parents, brother, sister-in-law, Riley, and Grayden. It was a day full of shopping and football. Today Jonathan and I went up to Birmingham to see his parents, Tracey, and Emma. Tracey and Emma were in town from Tennessee. We have not seen them since June. Emma has grown so much since we saw her last. We all went and ate at the Cheesecake Factory tonight before heading back. I guess I won't be getting it for a while since we probably won't be up there for treatments. I will more than likely be able to do everything here in Montgomery for a while. Unless it's the weekend.

Only a week and a half left before our follow up appointment! We are both really looking forward to it even though it will probably be a little emotional for us. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers, phone calls, voice mails, texts, emails, myspace/facebook messages. They mean so much to both of us. I promise I will get back to all of you. It's just taking a little while,but I'm getting better.

Negative

That was the result from my Beta blood test (pregnancy) today. I know yall were not expecting us to find out today. We tried to keep this little part to ourselves since we are being so open about everything else. We have a follow up appt. with Dr. Houserman on September 24. We will find out if we have any options besides IVF since they learned so much about our problems during this cycle.

I don't really feel like talking about it anymore right now. I'm 100% mentally, physically, emotionally drained. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. It means so much to Jonathan and I.

TGIF!

It's Friday. It's been 5 days since our ET. I've been at home resting all week. It's been nice, but I do have to say one thing. I have been haunted by Baby shows all day and all week long! I usually love to watch them, but for some reason this week not so much. I did watch a full show today without any tears or bad thoughts. I have also been keeping myself busy by trying to come with a plan if this fails. I do know that I won't do anything for at least a month because my body needs a rest from all the medication, procedures, and stress. I think by me focusing on a game plan just in case we need one keeps my mind off of whether this is going to work or not. I just need to know either way, but I have to patient.

I do have one exciting thing to announce for the week. Our church First Baptist is starting an infertility/pregnancy loss group this Sunday afternoon. Please spread the word to anyone you think would be interested. I talked to one of the women who started this group last night. It made even more excited about it. I guess I'm so happy to be around other women who are going through or have gone through the same experiences. They will be the only one's besides a few friends, the doctor's at ART, and some of the employees of ART who truly understand every emotion that I am or have experienced. I really think it's going to be such a positive thing for me and all of the women who come. We are meeting at 3:30 in room 225. Part of me wishes that Jonathan and all the other husband's could come too. I think that although the men don't physically go through all the treatments that go along with infertility they do experience all the emotions. Maybe that is something that will happen in the near future.

I guess I will stop rambling on. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. WAR EAGLE!

Embyro Transfer!

We arrived at ART this morning nervously awaiting the news on your little embryo's. I took a valium on the way there and had to drink lots of water to have a full bladder. This was not comfortable at all! Then it was time. They called us back and had both of us change into our gowns and other attire. There was one couple ahead of us. We only had to wait for like 10 minutes back there. During this time we had to sign more consents. Then it was our time. We went in Dr. Honea brought over a picture of our one little embyro that made it. The other 2 had stopped growing. There was no time to be upset I knew I could not stress my body out and my uterus. Plus we are so blessed to have come this far with only having 3 mature eggs. We also got a cute little snuggle bear because they care from ART. It is for our baby, but if we don't get one this time. It's for us. I'm already attached to it.

She explained to us that our embryo was a 7 cell morula. It was just a little behind a blastocyst. A blastocyst is what stage they want them to be at on day 5. Still people who have perfect embies don't get pregnant and people with not so perfect can still get pregnant.

The embroyologist brought in our little embie, the nurse was doing an ultrasound on my abdomen and my Dr. put in a catheter up to my uterus and that is how the embryo gets transferred. Jonathan could see it on the ultrasound machine. I did not look. I kept my eyes closed trying to think peaceful thoughts like Dr. Honea recommended. When she was done she prayed over us with the nurse that was in the Operating room with us. I can't tell you how much that meant to us.

Now it's the hardest wait yet. I will continue taking my progesterone injections and cream until we find out if we are pregnant or not. If not we already have a follow up appointment set up with Dr. Houserman.

It's is completely out of our hands and we could not have asked for anything more than to get to this point with unexpected egg count. I will be in bed for the rest of the week trying to get some rest. Please continue to lift us up in Prayer right now. It only takes one and it has happened for several couples.

I will be back soon. Now it's time to get back in bed. Night!