Nothing comes easy and fast...

Doctor's appointment went well... I guess. As well as these things go... I don't have to have the D&C surgery. The gestational sac has almost completely cleared my uterus. Sorry this topic is kinda gross... but this is an infertility blog so you must be prepared for some medical mumbo jumbo and let's face it, the human body is amazing, but very gross and disgusting sometimes. I still have the remainder of my uterine lining to pass. I am not sure what all that consists of, but it sounds like I am going to have a very heavy period. I have been doing lots of reading online about using misoprostol (bad idea to read online) and it was like reading people's miscarriage horror stories. I expected lots of pain, cramps, fainting, vomiting, diarrhea, and a blood bath. So far nothing has been too bad. I am still waiting for the blood bath. Hopefully that is not too bad also.

The good news... no surgery, I get to keep my $2500. The bad news... I am still waiting for the blood bath!

Big Sigh...

As of this coming Tuesday I have been technically pregnant for 12 weeks. With a healthy pregnancy, I would be coming to the end of the first trimester. It has been 4 weeks since our 8 week ultrasound where we found out our baby(ies) did not have a heartbeat. I have been praying and hoping that God would just induce this miscarriage on His own without help from any medication. Unfortunately it appears that I have a "missed miscarriage". 

DEFINITION: 'missed miscarriage' is when the baby dies, but the woman's cervix stays closed, there is no bleeding and the baby continues to stay inside the uterus. Some people also refer to this as a 'silent miscarriage'. A missed miscarriage is not usually discovered until several days or weeks after the baby has died. The baby does not grow and the size of the woman's uterus does not increase. Some women will notice that their pregnancy signs (tender breasts, nausea, tiredness etc.) disappear, but others will continue to 'feel pregnant' if the placental tissue continues to release hormones into their system (including the hormone that makes a pregnancy test turn 'positive'). A few women will not experience as many early pregnancy discomforts (which can be normal) making their physical changes harder to detect. In many cases, the woman will believe that her pregnancy is progressing, as her body continues to carry the baby, not recognizing or reacting to the loss. 

I have had no bleeding whatsoever and in my opinion some of my pregnancy symptoms continued and others diminished. The doctor has been seeing me once a week for the last 4 weeks to do a vaginal ultrasound (did I mention how sick of these I am getting) and has suggested to do a D&C or have me take Misoprostol, a drug used to help along a miscarriage. It is scary stuff too, because it is also used for women who want to have an abortion. It is suppose to soften the cervix and cause heavy bleeding to expel the contents of the uterus. Not to mention the long list of scary side effects – diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, cramping. My nurse told me that it would be extremely painful and cause me to cramp and expel the pregnancy. I was suppose to take it about a week ago and chickened out. Part of me was holding onto false hope that maybe this week I would finally see something different on the ultrasound. I didn't want to be too hasty and terminate a perfectly good pregnancy. My doctor is really good and felt the same way; that is why we have waited so long to move this missed miscarriage along. 

At my last appointment this past Thursday, I had my beta redone and it has declined from 16,000 two weeks ago to 3,000 this past week. I have now fully accepted the fact that this pregnancy is over and I am ready to finally finish it and let the healing process – both physically and emotionally begin. 

The choices are sad... It is really picking the lesser of 2 evils and I was so scared to pick one. The pills cost $4.40 and the D&C is going to be $2500 deductible. The risks with both are about equal. This was one of the hardest decisions of my life and for the first time I have not been handling it too well. I tend to withdraw when I am dealing emotionally. Also, I am mad! I am mad that I have to pick one. I wish God could have just taken care of this for me. And I am mad that we actually have money in cash to use on this surgery, yet I would rather spend it on a nice relaxing vacation instead of surgery. On the other hand, God once again has provided the money to take care of this problem too, like He always does. 

4/26/12, THURSDAY NIGHT after my dr. appt that morning: I decided to go ahead and induce the miscarry by taking these vaginal suppositories instead of opting for the D&C surgery. I took the pills to speed it along b/c I can't take it anymore. The annoying thing about it is I took the darn pills and I haven't even messed up a pad in 3 days. I have only had light pink spotting when I wipe so it looks like I am going to have to have the surgery anyway. It will prob. be scheduled for this coming week. I have another appt. on Monday 4/30/12. At least it will be all over with in a few days and I can try to go back to normal. 

I have been in an especially bad mood the last few days. I feel bad for John b/c he prob. has no idea what to do with me. I just want to be left alone. I was dealing with this well in the beginning and he was suffering and now that all the physical pain part is happening, I am the one to not deal as well both emotionally and physically.

Infertility sucks the life out of you. Trying on our own was frustrating when we kept on getting negative results. But the true frustrations began when trying through treatment began. We have been at treatment since Feb. 2011. So only a little over a yr. for us and I am ready to quit after every unsuccessful try. It's exhausting. I want to keep trying, but at times it is just too hard to do so. I change my mind almost every other day about it. 

BIG SIGH....

Meet John & Erin (Adoption Packet)

We are still seeking guidance from the Lord in our hopes to start our family. We would like to pursue adoption as well as another round or two of IVF. We are planning to do an FET cycle in July to use our 2 remaining frozen embryos. However, we are also excited about the possibilities of adoption. If any of you know of anyone seeking to choose an adoption plan for their child, please show them our information and blog and maybe we will all be a great fit for each other. See below for the adoption packet that I designed for birth families to initially get a glimpse of who were are as an adoptive couple.

If you have trouble reading the type, email me and I will send you a pdf copy or printed copy if you prefer of the adoption packet. Email me at zejuphoto@gmail.com 

The waiting game...

It is funny that life is all about waiting. The older I get the more I realize that God uses waiting to strengthen and deepen our relationship with Him.

Everyone has to wait for things. Children have to wait to finally be grown up; wait for that special toy; wait for your time-out to be over (3 minutes can be so long when you are 3 yrs. old); Adolescences and adults wait to finish high school and then college; wait to find out if you were hired for your dream job; wait for your house to sell; wait for the results of a test; or more scary wait for the results for medical tests; wait to pass kidney stones; wait to heal from the flu; wait to turn 16 so you can finally date and drive a car; wait for God to show you who is your one true love by falling in love and getting married; wait to work things out with your husband or wife; wait for reconciliation with friends, family and spouses; wait for your divorce to be final; wait to heal from divorce; wait for that much anticipated vacation; wait to get pregnant; wait to hear a heartbeat; wait to see if the baby is healthy; wait to give birth; wait to recover from childbirth; wait to lose the baby weight; wait for an adoption to be final; wait to see if the birth mother will change her mind; wait for foster care license to be finalized; when you have children, wait and worry about who they will grow up to be and if you did a good job parenting; wait for those same children to come home on time from dates...

The waiting cycle continues and goes on and on and on...  constantly waiting for God's timing on everything (not to mention waiting for everyone to tell you that all you need to do is wait on God's timing... duh);

Waiting for God to show you answers to certain prayers; waiting for God to show you your ministry/purpose in life...

We are currently in the waiting game with so many other people – just for different things.

Remember that no matter what your wait is for that others are struggling too and need just as much support as you.

My waiting game right now is waiting to miscarry. The doctor said that I would – the baby has no heartbeat. Is the doctor right? He must be, he's the doctor. I have to wait for my blood hcg levels to go to zero from 16,000. That could takes weeks, the nurse told me on the phone a few days ago. The hardest part of all of this is the wait. I can't stand looking and feeling pregnant, yet there is no baby or possibly a dead baby inside of me – just waiting to come out. Two weeks ago, I was starting to feel proud to show off my growing baby bump and now I am trying to hide it. Hoping and praying that the weather remains cold so that I can still wear my baggy sweatshirts. Hoping and praying that I lose 10 lbs. immediately upon the miscarriage so that I can at least look and feel somewhat normal again.

I know for me, I never thought about this part of a miscarriage. Maybe most women just miscarry and were surprised to miscarry. With IVF, everything is monitored so closely that lucky for me? I get to find out earlier than most what is to happen in a few weeks. Some people would like to be prepared in such a way, but I would rather just get this over with. I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday to check blood levels once again and another vaginal ultrasound (I can't wait for these to be over). I can't even count how many of those I have had in the last 6 months. It is one thing to get them knowing you will get to meet your baby in a few months, but it is horrible knowing it is just to check the progress of your miscarriage.

Wait wait wait...

What I tell myself during all these struggles is the same thing... God is in control and my life is very good despite this. 

Our heart... Your heart...

The heart... is an amazing, yet funny thing. It beats almost effortlessly and without fail. We are not typically aware of its presence in our lives. It beats day in and day out controlled only by our Creator, The Lord Jesus Christ and Father God. The heart never takes time off and it rarely complains (only when we eat spicy food or are pregnant). Something we take for granted easily until there comes a time when you want to hear a heartbeat so badly and it is not there.

We went to our first ultrasound last week and found out we are pregnant with twins. I was 8 weeks pregnant. At this time there should be a visible heartbeat flutter on the ultrasound. There was fetal mass and blood flow around the 2 sacs. The doctor was concerned that I would miscarry in a few weeks. He did want me to come back one week later at week 9 to make sure that they were not just late starters. With the amount of effort we put into this pregnancy we wanted to give them the best chance possible. As of today's ultrasound at 9 weeks, it has been confirmed that I will indeed miscarry. Today there was nothing there except one small sac. Most of the fetal material reabsorbed and the rest will result in a miscarriage. This type of miscarriage is referred to as a blighted ovum. Thankfully the Lord worked this out and I should naturally miscarry without having to undergo a D&C.

We have given this infertility journey over to God from the beginning. We know God has perfect timing and we know that He has a better plan for us than we have for ourselves. We know this journey is for John and me to grow closer in our marriage and closer in our relationship to God. Possibly for God to be able to use us in greater ministry later. If our growth in the Lord and to each other is the only outcome, that is amazing. If we never take home a baby or we lose several, we are happy to have the only outcome be the closeness to each other and especially to God. 

The frustrations for us do not come in the emotional state of losing a child. Of course, our hearts break for this loss and we have shed a few tears. Thankfully we trust in our Creator and understand that God has that child's life in His hands and He knew what was best for him/her. That their life would not be good here on Earth and if that child was brought here it would suffer far greater than a miscarriage. 

Our frustrations are with the IVF process in general, more shots, more medicines, more procedures, more money, more time, more waiting.... That is what gets us down... having to do it all over again. It is disappointing to work so hard for something, pay thousands of dollars and have it cut short. But on the other hand, this is great progress and to actually get pregnant (something I could not do before) brings us a step closer to getting pregnant again or not (it really is up to God). Of course doing IVF is our choice and we have to see this process through because God has provided it for us (both the money down to the penny and the emotional strength). If it ends, and there is no baby, we will at least have closure on this period of our life and move forward with joy for whatever God has next. We will praise God in His plan for us. 

God very clearly told us to do this last round when we had already told the doctors that we were ready to quit. And God blessed us with a gift. He allowed us to get pregnant. The lost pregnancy is still a gift because God gave us hope that we can get pregnant and keep going. We look at this miscarriage as a blessing in disguise. 

Not fully understood, but fully trusted in our Lord.

We are moving forward slowly, one prayer at a time. We will be able to try again in about 3 months with our 2 frozen blastocysts. We have to wait for my hormone levels to come down and my hcg to return to zero. After the hormones regulate, we can try again in 6-8 weeks. After that, we will continue to take it one prayer at a time. 

A long story that ends in Celebrations!

About 2 months ago, John and I made the decision to stop IVF after one fresh cycle and one FET (frozen embryo transfer) cycle. We honestly felt good about our decision as the medical, financial and emotional nature of this process was taking its toll. We have and still feel called to adoption (we are waiting on the Lord for this as well).

After our decision, I called my nurse and left her a message on her voicemail explaining that we were ready to call it quits. It was just too hard and we were tired of it all. Later that afternoon, my doctor called me to question me about my decision. I was actually very impressed that he was concerned enough to do that for us. The doc and I talked and I remained strong on our decision. He did say that he really thought he could get me pregnant. That night, John and I found out that the program that we went through, Attain IVF, stated in their contract that "if you were in between cycles, and you did not achieve a pregnancy and you wanted to stop they would refund 70% of the initial loan" which was about $12,000. This did not include medications (those costs were history). We were pleasantly surprised as we figured we needed to complete all 6 cycles in order to receive any type of refund.
We called Attain IVF and told them we were finished. They told us how sorry they were and gave us their condolences. Another very nice thing! All we needed to do was send in the form signed that stated that we wanted to quit.

We were done... We had the Attain form signed and ready to be mailed out. We told the doctor we were finished and we felt good about it.

That night, John went to bed. I stayed up as usual to watch my recorded shows and do some photo editing or whatever it was that I was suppose to be doing.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I have never had so much anxiety in my life. A strong panic sensation came over me. I was thinking "oh no, what did you do?" I do not like to be a quitter. I did not think that I was in this situation, but I knew that if we did not at least give it all 6 attempts I would wonder for the rest of my life, what if? Sometimes I feel like I give up too early on things and this was one of them. I hated what the meds were doing to my body, but I still wanted to give it a chance to prove me wrong... that it could grow a baby!

I composed an email to my doctor around 1 am stating we wanted to continue, was it too late? I called my sister and paced... trying to decide if I should wake up John to tell him that I changed my mind. It is not like he would be surprised... I change my mind all the time. Especially with tough things like this. We both do.

I knew making this decision wasn't easy for John and it was an emotional roller coaster ride for us both. I didn't want to wake him up and say "I changed my mind, should I send this email to the doctor, ok you can go back to sleep now." I knew he wouldn't be able to sleep after that and I couldn't do that to him. I called my sister to talk it through with her (she works 3rd shift and just had a baby so I knew she would probably be up). She never told me what to do, but was very helpful in calming me down.

I wrote John a note and tried to sleep myself.

When John's alarm clock went off, I was up explaining to him what happened to me the night before.
He was extremely supportive and said, "yes, send the email to the doctor asking if it was too late to continue." I sent it around 6:30 am.

Relief came over me when I got an email from my nurse saying that is wasn't too late and to start birth control pills immediately and order my other medications so we could get started on the next IVF fresh cycle. I did not have any remaining frozen embryos left. Even if we did, the fresh cycles have a higher percentage rate of working. That is why they do Fresh IVF & frozen FET alternating.

We felt pretty stupid for changing our minds and it was so emotional the times before; we decided not to tell anyone, but family about our decision to continue. It is really hard to tell people, "no it didn't work, I am not pregnant." 

Let me be straightforward here that if someone came to me today and said I want an adoption plan for my child and I would like you to raise him/her we would in a heartbeat. Our decision to adopt did not change, just our decision to continue IVF. We are praying about our future children wherever they may be.

We always felt that IVF was a gift from God. He fully provided it for us both monetarily and emotionally. We grew closer to the Lord and to each other through it. Maybe this journey will prepare us to be adoptive parents/foster parents in the future. We know in our hearts that God wants us to adopt someday. We felt that God was allowing us the choice to pursue biological children as well through IVF. We have faith that God can do anything He wants, but that doesn't always mean that He will do want we want. We had no idea if God would bless us with a biological baby through IVF, but we knew He would bless us as a couple for pursuing His leadership and guidance through our daily struggles and joys.

I will never fully understand why God, for now, is closing the door on adoption. He favors adoption and has adopted us all as sons into His kingdom for all who accept Him as Savior and Lord of their life. The verse below states only sons, but it is to include daughters as well. God gave women the same importance/inheritance as men by including daughters as sons to be equal in our adoption into His heavenly kingdom.

Ephesians 1: 3 - 14 

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he^c predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he^d made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

11In him we were also chosen,^e having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

I want to adopt as badly as I want biological children. I will always want to, I have since I was a child. I wanted to adopt more than have biological children when I was in my twenties. It is puzzling to me why I must wait on this as well, but I must be patient and wait upon the Lord for his direction in this.

And so this long story continues... as did the IVF (round 3).

I was dreading it, but I had to know if it would work... after all God had provided everything. It was amazing to watch him provide each time down to the last penny everything we needed to keep going forward. We prayed and said "if this is not what you want, please stop us."

A few weeks later, I started my meds, everything went perfectly as perfectly as it could. All my dates were early and I was able to have my egg retrieval and transfer 3 days before scheduled. I grew 20 eggs this time. 13 were mature and 9 fertilized. Praise the Lord so many were of Grade A(1) quality and 8 celled by day 3 that they allowed them to culture until day 5. The goal is to become a multi-cell (60-150 celled) blastocyst. I have done tons of reading online about this and the best possible embryo is a blastocyst. It has the highest quality and ability to implant. On a day 3 transfer when the embryo is only 6-8 cells (in a natural cycle) the embryo would still be in the fallopian tubes. When the embryo reaches the uterus it should have already developed into a blastocyst. With IVF the only place to put the embryos is in the uterus, so it is best to have the embryo be what it would naturally be when it reaches the uterus and that is a blastocyst. Of our 13 embryos, 2 reached blastocyst by day 5! YAY! I was so excited; this had never happened before. We had a better chance (medically). Spiritually there is always the same chance, because God is in control. Thank goodness!

On day 5, we transferred 2 beautiful grade A blastocysts. The transfer is very uncomfortable, but it went well and we were in for the 2 week wait.

On day 6, with the 2 blasts comfortably inside me. 2 more embies made it to blastocyst. These 2 were frozen for future use. The remaining 5 of 9 did not continue to develop. But having 4 blastocysts this cycle was very promising!

It only took 1 week to get a positive HPT. I peed on one of those dreadful things on Friday curious to see if the HCG trigger ovulation shot was out of my system and I got a negative. I was pretty sure the shot was gone by now and I read online that some people in my situation had tested positive that early. I threw it away. I didn't want John to see it and get discouraged. I acted normal as if nothing had happened. After all it really was still too early. My blood test wasn't for another week. The next night, I thought I am just gonna pull it out of the trash (ew, I know!) and see if it is still neg. and low and behold there was a faint second line. What? I cried a little, prayed and was so excited and went to bed (because well, there was nothing else to do).

Later I read that any results read after 10 mins. are unreliable. Well, that didn't stop me from testing again the next morning (Sunday, one week after the transfer) with a digital read test. I was completely sick of seeing one line. And it said pregnant! What? I was so nervous and excited and was praising God in somewhat disbelief. I had to take more tests to be sure. It was 6:00 am on Sunday... again John was asleep. I knew he was sick and needed the sleep so I tried to go back to sleep. I decided I would tell him at 10 am. I kept peeking over to see if he was awake. Of all days for him to take tylenol PM, that boy wasn't waking for anything. I did fall back asleep and told him the news later that morning. We prayed and thanked God and celebrated by me peeing on a few more tests! :)

I emailed my nurse to tell her and I was able to move my blood test up 3 days and the results came back.... Congratulations you are pregnant!

I had to go back again today to see if my numbers had doubled as they should and they did! YAY!
I am still pregnant.

I have one more blood test this coming Friday and an ultrasound in 2 weeks to hear the heartbeat.
If all goes well we will have one (or two) little additions to our family.

We are so thankful to the Lord for this blessing!
A little nervous about the next steps!
But very excited and thankful to the Lord!
And thankful to all our supportive friends and family for all their prayers on our behalf!

Finishing a Chapter . . .No, Just Taking a Minute to Think!

This is John . . .

Well I have not written on here for awhile and it's because we have been so busy.  We are currently in the middle of our third round of IVF and are excited about the possibilities!!!

We decided to stop as we posted earlier but just couldn't because we really wanted to see what God was going to do with our IVF journey.

We should have new results in a few weeks!

Thanks for your prayers!