There's Hope in Front of Me

Two day's ago I wrote about how my faith is what gets me through the storms I've been through within the past six years. I had one person comment on Facebook that she's glad that faith "always works out" for me but felt the need to tell me she is an Atheist. My response was that faith doesn't always work everything out for me, because if it did I would not be doing fertility treatments and would not have lost even one baby let alone four. I also simply told her everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. She then felt she should respond by saying "exactly, that's why I don't post anything in this group about Atheism."

I don't know why I always feel like I need to explain myself to people. I shouldn't. But I do. I don't like upsetting anyone honestly, and don't want people to think I'm a know it all or preaching to them. So I want to make it clear that what I write, what I share-it has nothing to do what what I want people to believe and it certainly is not to preach to them. Our experiences in life shape us into the person we are. We get our beliefs from our up-bringing from our parents/family and then we change our beliefs along the way as we grow into adults and experience different situations in life. People who are Christians, or who are spiritual in any way, are not people who have perfect lives where nothing bad has ever happened to them. And they are also not people who have never questioned God's intentions or abilities. I question them...all the time. I am far from the person who goes to church every weekend. I've been angry with God. Sometimes I wanted to believe there was no such thing as a God. Sometimes I've felt like my daughter is just dead in the ground and I would never see her again because there really is no Heaven. These moments of anger and questioning though, for some reason, they don't last long for me and I am always brought back to a position where I can see life for what it has been and what possibilities are in my future. This is my own personal experience, not yours, so I don't expect you to feel the same way as I do.

For those of you that commented with things like "I needed this tonight," I am happy you felt a connection with what I wrote. If any of my posts inspire or help just one person, I feel like I'm doing what I was called to do with this blog.

OK-so now that that's out of the way....I can write about my appointment with my "NEW" Doctor today. I met with Dr. Thie who is the physician that partners with my fertility clinic and who was willing to take over my care and work with Dr. Braverman in New York to ensure that I could get the immunological treatment that Dr. Braverman is recommending. The appointment went rather well I think. We went over my history with recurrent pregnancy loss and failed IVF w/PGD. We discussed the upcoming Egg Donor cycle and how we would manage all of my medical issues that we are aware of at this point.

I feel good after talking with Dr. Thie. She was very nice and seemed to understand how important it is to us to make sure we have done everything possible to make this cycle work for us. She has yet to consult with Dr. Braverman but will be doing so within the next week. She was okay with ordering the medication that I informed her that he told me he wanted me on, but she will check with him regarding the dosing and how often blood work will need to be ordered. Her nurse checked with the hospital where they have sent people for IVIG (intravenous immunoglobulin) therapy to see if they would be able to do the Intralipid infusions that I would be on. They said they have not done those infusions before but believe they would be able to order the supplies and do the infusions for me, which would be more convenient than driving an hour and half out of my way to another part of the state where I thought I would need to go for them. So we will see how that all gets worked out. My first infusion would be in November, two weeks before our embryo transfer.

Dr. Thie does not think I need the laparoscopy completed or does not think it would increase our chances any more of getting pregnant/carrying a baby to term. I am okay with proceeding without it for now. We will re-visit this issue if our first transfer does not result in being pregnant. She does think I have all the signs of PCOS. But did explain that its really a hard thing to diagnosis. She is basing her diagnosis on my Insulin levels, my weight gain, my acne, hair growth (I get to pluck hairs around my belly button, its lovely), and the amount of follicles she saw today on my ultrasound. I had 20 follicles just in my left ovary. I don't think they could tell on my right because I had just ovulated a few days ago so there was a corpus lutium cyst taking up most of that ovary. I find it all very interesting to be honest. All my pain, which I've always thought was ovulation pain, is on my left side. But every time I have an ultrasound after ovulation or while pregnant-I've ovulated from the right side. And then back in March when I attempted to see what a naturalist had to say about my issues and she looked into my eyes (she's also an iridologist, she told me my left ovary was inflamed. And then during my egg retrieval my left ovary was so incredibly painful, since I was unmedicated, that I started yelling that it hurt and the doctor had to stop the retrieval. So there is something up with that left ovary-PCOS or Endometriosis....but something is up. OH well-as far as I'm aware-since we are doing donor eggs, my ovaries won't affect my pregnancy, so I'm not going to let myself worry much about that piece for now.

Other than that-she ordered some blood work to check a few more things out. She told me to decrease my Metformin back to 1000 mg from 1500mg because, well, I have had some not so pleasant side effects that have kept me on the toilet every 10-20 minutes throughout the night several times now. That's not healthy. And it interferes with my sleep. And my husbands. Hopefully going back down to the lower dose will help that issue. I will continue everything else that I currently take. Oh, and I will be starting out on Progesterone injections but will test my level after taking it for 7 days and will supplement with suppositories if the injections aren't getting my level up.

Next week, or the week after, whenever I start my period, I will start my birth control regimen. Then I will wait for my sister to start her next period around October 12th and we will be full force into our Egg Donor cycle! I am sooo ready to get started and see where this is going to take us in our journey to parenthood. After today's appointment with Dr. Thie, I feel like there's hope in front of me. I feel like there is no reason right now to believe this isn't going to work for us. I know the reality is that it might not-but we will cross that bridge if we come to it. I believe we are taking control this time and doing what we can to make this successful on our end, so we just need my sister's ovaries to cooperate and produce healthy, mature eggs for us.

Because I love this song and it came into my life when I needed it the most, I will share it with you. Every last word is perfect for what we have been through. No matter how bad it gets, there is always hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KIhYZQ_ovw