Taking Care of Business

When preparing for an IVF cycle, there is a lot involved.  You have to be medically and psychologically cleared.  You have to make sure your finances are in order so you can afford to pay the fertility center when they ask for that huge lump sum of money. And you have to fully understand what you are getting yourself into.

Over the last couple of months we have not only been preparing ourselves for our IVF cycle, but we have been trying to prepare my sister as well since she is going to be our egg donor.  This particular IVF cycle is requiring just as much from her as it is us, if not more.  So I will start there.

I haven't shared this before because I don't like feeling like I am putting my sister down.  But this is a blog that is built on sharing honest emotions.  So honestly, over the last three months since we began preparing my sister for this Egg Donor IVF cycle, we, or at least myself, have been very worried that my sister was going to back out.  She is an indecisive person and has always struggled to make up her mind on what she wants in her life. She may not think so, but I know so. I've only ever watched her grow up for the past 23 years and seen how every relationship shes ever been in has unfolded, and refolded if we want to talk about her current relationship.  Every time I have had to ask my sister for information or give her information on what she needs to do to get approval from our fertility center to be our egg donor she has always given me attitude.  It has made me feel like she does not want to go through with this but would never just come out and say those exact words.  Instead, earlier this past week it was "It seems like this is going to be an inconvenience and take time away from being with Raegan."  Of course this made me feel like she might as well say "Lindsay-I don't want to do this."  I was upset-very upset.  I felt like she should have never agreed to do this in the first place because I warned her over and over that this isn't as simple as "just take my eggs" like she kept saying in the beginning. Trust me. If it was that simple we would have already just taken her eggs and would hopefully be pregnant by now.  But it's not. And I was clear with her to begin with.

I fully understand and appreciate the amount of time my sister would be putting into this process. And I am even more grateful that she would even consider injecting herself with hormones to help us have a child.  Her comment really stung though....because there are only 6-8 more appointments she would have to go to from now until her egg retrieval and only one appointment that her daughter absolutely would not be able to be at which is the egg retrieval itself.  My niece is in preschool in the mornings anyways so if my sister had appointments on those days it would not take away her time with her daughter because her daughter isn't even home.  I think her comment stung most of all because we've tried having children on our own and all of our babies died while I was pregnant with them-so I have never even had so much as a day with my children.  We wouldn't be involving my sister in our fertility issues if this wasn't a matter of me having bad eggs that are causing our babies to die.  I know it's not her responsibility to make sure we have children we get to spend the rest of our lives with, yet I feel like these are the reasons God gave us siblings-to help us when we are at the lowest points in our lives.  I know I can't count on all my fingers and toes how many times I was there for my sister and niece during the first 2-3 years of my nieces life.  I was there for her birth. I cut her cord. I took off work the first week of my nieces life to help my sister.  I came home and babysat her so my sister could still hang out with her friends.  I babysat my niece every Monday night for several months in 2012 because my sister didn't have any else who could do it.  This is what sisters are for.  I don't want to use some strange ladies eggs who I know nothing about.  And right now, we don't want to adopt because we want to experience being pregnant for 9 months and giving birth to our baby.  So we NEED this to go through with my sister.

I was very happy when she sent me a picture the next day of a cat and a toddler saying "I'm convinced this is going to be Farrah and the baby."  It broke the ice. And then she had a polite adult conversation with me and asked me questions about what she needs to do next and we talked about how this is all going to work out with her work schedule and daughter's schedule.  We met with her in person on Saturday to "clear the air."  We shared concerns, opinions, and made agreements.  I gave her a calendar with everything she has left to do so she could see the process in detail on paper.  I know she was overwhelmed by it.  I would be to.  I was the first time we went through this.  It's even more overwhelming for me now because most of this process is not in my control.  I have to trust and rely on my sister to come through for us.  I have to be patient for her body to give us the "go ahead."  Which is what we are doing now.  Just waiting for her period to start so we can get her blood work and STD screening completed this coming week.

So taking care of business number one is completed.  We got our personal issues squared away.  We are still doing this thing. Thankfully my sister really is a caring person and wants to see us have a happy family and is still willing to go the extra mile to make that happen for us.  We love you Ashley!

Taking care of business number two: Preparing my body for this baby.

I've been very unpleased with the lack of response I had been getting from Dr. Braverman over the past two weeks.  He was supposed to have called my doctor in Cincinnati two weeks ago to share his thoughts and findings and to come up with a treatment plan for me.  He failed to do that. The he failed to respond to my emails asking him for results of my blood work and when he was planning on calling Dr. Hofmann since he didn't do it when he said he would.  Finally I got pissed and I called the office and got no where the first time.  I called back the next day and complained again and then later that afternoon I got an email from Dr. Braverman with my blood work results, my husband's DNA fragmentation results, recommendations for vitamins for the both of us, and a link my fertility doctor and OBGYN need to fill out to request a phone consult with him.  I forwarded the information on to my doctors so hopefully this coming week they will all talk and figure out how we are going to treat these issues to make sure I don't miscarry a healthy baby.

My blood work came back indicating I do NOT have PCOS or any problems with egg quality of egg reserve.  I knew I had plenty of eggs in those ovaries of mine,,,but last time we talked he said based on my insulin level he was suspicious of PCOS and egg quality issues.  Ok....so we know for sure now it really is the chromosome issues that are making my eggs suck.  My husband's DNA fragmentation test came back borderline high.  Dr. Braverman recommended my husband take ProXeed Plus which helps decrease fragmentation and improves morphology.  I looked this up and it will cost $240 for a two month supply.  Dr. Braverman also recommended that I take a probiotic to help with digesting and metabolizing foods. The probiotic costs $135 for a two month supply. We haven't ordered either of these yet because we don't have the extra cash right now. We have had doctor bills coming in that we have been trying to pay off.

Speaking of extra cash, taking care of business number three is our finances.

My husband and I are hard working people.  I started working for my father's cleaning business when I was 8.  By high school I worked 2-3 jobs and started going to college.  My husband was working construction in high school.  We both went to college and we both have our Master's Degrees. We now work middle class jobs making very decent money. My husband is a Commercial Loan Officer at a small bank and I am a Mental Health Social Worker in a hospital. I work overtime quite frequently so we can pay down our existing medical bills.

We both have a ton of credit card debt.  I lived on credit cards in college because I paid my own way through school.  Over the past 6 years every time I get any money back from taxes it goes straight to paying off a credit card.  But I always end up maxing out my cards again.  My husband has done the same thing. Life just keeps throwing shit at us.  First it was buying stuff for our new house 4 years ago.  Using our credit cards to fix our house up.  But that didn't compare to when I had to have several emergency eye surgeries or I would have lost my vision and ended up being off work right before our wedding when all of our money was due to the places we signed contracts with.  So most of our wedding went onto a credit card-about $20,000 worth of our wedding.  Had we known I was going to have surgeries and be off work-we wouldn't have had such an extravagant wedding.  We starting paying that down, and then infertility treatments came up.  There goes another $13,000 onto a credit card.  There goes any bit of extra money we have in our bank accounts to monthly installment payments to paying for my D&C's from my two miscarriages and ultrasounds and blood work and consults with various doctors.  Dr. Braverman's testing alone was $4,000 and that of course went onto a credit card that was "paid off" because we had previously transferred the balance onto a 12 month no interest credit card.

It feels like we are drowning in a sea of debt.  Beyond the credit cards are the student loans.  We are getting no where making the minimum payments which is all we can afford.  So we decided to try to consolidate at least one our of debts.  I was approved for a personal loan and used the loan to pay off all five of my maxed our credit cards. We are closing four of the cards so we can never use them again.  One will be kept open for "emergencies."  My husband switched jobs at the beginning of June so we knew he was going to be getting information on his retirement account and pension plan.  We got the retirement account first.  Had to use $8,000 of it to pay back his previous employer for paying for his master's degree and not staying with the company long enough.  The other $11,000 is in an IRA that we were hoping not to have to pull out of because it's not tax free.  My husband was hoping for a hefty pension plan that he was going to use to pay off either his car loan or credit cards.  We are extremely disappointed when it came back significantly lower than we were anticipating.  We now plan to combine that $4,000 with the $11,000 from his IRA to be able to pay for our Egg Donor IVF cycle.

We still need $4,000 just for the IVF cycle.  We probably need another $6,000 on top of that to treat the issues Dr. Braverman discovered.  It's insane how much this stuff costs.  We are going on $45,000 that will have been spent just THIS YEAR in an attempt to have our first living child. Congress really needs to step up the legislation on requiring employers to select insurance policies that cover not just infertility testing but infertility treatment.  It's not fair that a drug addicted mother can have 12 babies and doesn't pay a dime for any of their deliveries and then the government even pays for someone else to raise the woman's children.  It's not fair that a teenager can have a child and gets free daycare and free medical insurance and free formula for their child.  It's not fair that infertility is so discriminated against as something that is not "medically necessary."  Well hell, apparently the treatment for my rare disease isn't even medically necessary because insurance doesn't cover that either and they consider food supplements that same as buying groceries.  Who the hell spends $3000 a month on groceries because that's what my food supplements would cost me if I took them as often as I'm supposed to.  The middle class really gets screwed.  We aren't poor by the standards of income so we can't get help for jack.  And we aren't rich by the standards of income so we can barely afford jack.  Yet we work our asses off the hardest to merely get by in life.  Building a family should not cost this much money.

We are thankful we have the resources that we do.  We aren't happy that we have put so much of this on credit cards and now will be taking out of my husbands IRA and will have to pay a shit ton in taxes next year.  But we are getting by and we will continue to get by.

We are also thankful to have some community support with a golf outing we have been organizing.  It's not going as successfully as I was hoping, but its raising us money and we appreciate that.  When we started planning the golf outing, the goal was to raise money not only for ourselves but for another couple in our community who is struggling financially with the cost of infertility treatments.  We want to be able to help others.  We know how hard this is not just financially but emotionally too.  There is so much anger and defeat associated with infertility especially when you are struggling to figure out how to pay for it.  It makes me sad to think we may not be able to help another couple if we don't reach $5,000.  Right now we are about $2300 away from that and the golf outing is in two weeks.

If anyone would like to donate, even $10 helps us get closer to our goal. 60% of the money we raise will go to help my husband and I with our egg donor IVF cycle and the other 40% will go to another middle class couple like my husband and I who have already spent thousands on fertility treatments and need a little help to afford their next treatment.  You can donate here:
https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/m1w4/onababyquest?utm_source=facebook

Thank you for the love and support, and of course for reading this very long blog.

Where is my One Year Old?

When I found out at the end of November in 2012 that I was pregnant I was so ecstatic. I started planning our child's life right away. I knew what matching pak-n-play, highchair, swing, and convertible stroller w/carseat set that I wanted. I had so many cute bedding sets picked out that I was tossing between-wanting something neutral so we could reuse it for our future babies too. I started buying little things here and there and any free moment that I had you were sure to find me in the baby section of any department store.

In early January I met two of my college friends for lunch and I pulled out my ultrasound picture to share my exciting news with them. After lunch, me and one of my friends went to Babies R Us and started my Baby Registry. I remember the lady asking when I was due-"August 10th." "You sure are excited aren't you!" That was her polite way of saying-"this is really early to be making a baby registry." I didn't care though. I loved my baby so much and I was over the moon that my husband and I were going to be parents.

Maybe I should have known better. Maybe I should have been more cautious and realized one week everything can be great and progressing as it's supposed to, and the next, well-things can go wrong quickly. Maybe I should have remembered what it was like the last time I created a registry, when I was 22 weeks pregnant, and less than 2 weeks later my beautiful daughter was dead and the registry was no longer needed. Maybe I shouldn't have been so happy for myself. Maybe I shouldn't have envisioned a happily ever after.

Over the past year I have had many reminders from Babies R Us that I should have a bouncing baby in my arms. Last August I got a card-"Congratulations on your new baby!" with a 20% coupon and a discount on items left on my registry if purchased by September. Throughout the year I've gotten monthly Babies R Us catalogs with discount coupons. I've gotten Similac formula couples and recently actual infant to toddler formula sample packs. Towards the end of July I got a card from Babies R Us-"Happy First Birthday!" with of course another 20% coupon. Every month I throw these reminders right into the trash. Is it Babies R Us' fault? No. But maybe they should look to see if anything was purchased off my registry before sending me congratulations and birthday cards for my child who never made it more than 3 weeks after I created my registry. Or maybe I just should have listened to the woman at the store who politely told me I was too excited too early in the game.

Today was my due date one year ago. It's 4:18am as I am typing right now. I'm at work. I've been here since 8pm and I don't get off until 8am. That gives me a lot of time to think. As much as I try to accept the life I have and the cards I've been dealt-I wish life were different. I wish I wasn't working overtime every weekend to make some extra money to pay for our outrageous medical bills related to trying to have a healthy baby. I wish I was at home cuddled in bed with my husband listening to the static on our baby monitor and jumping instantly the moment our son cries. I wish I could just hold our son in my arms and not just in my heart. I wish I wasn't sitting at this computer screen blogging about my feelings and wiping tears from my eyes. I wish I had a birthday party to plan and wish more than anything that our families knew our son too and could celebrate his precious life with us. The only thing I have of Logan to share with other people is this video I made last year on his due date: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2hzo2rc9pE

Our son would have been born with Down Syndrome. Today I wear this necklace just for him. For Logan. Love Doesn't count Chromosomes. No-it doesn't. In fact-I've said it many times, but when the doctor told me the genetic testing came back that we had a boy and he had Down Syndrome-I loved him so much more. It really does hurt me tremendously that I can't pour my love into my child like I should be able to. I know that had he been born, there wouldn't have been one second that I would have regreted his life or been angry that God gave me a child with special needs. Not one single millisecond.

This necklace brings up a lot of emotions for me. If Love Doesn't Count Chromosomes why did we do IVF with pre-implantation genetic screening? Why are we now pursuing Egg Donation? Why don't we continue to try to have a child naturally since we can get pregnant just fine? If a doctor said to me "Lindsay, I can guarantee two things for you. Your baby will definitely have Down Syndrome and you will definitely carry the baby full term and give birth to your living child," I would say "Sign me up doc!" In fact, Dr. Braverman in New York thinks once we treat the issues he discovered I will definitely be able to carry full term and won't have any more miscarriages, even if we used my own eggs. The problem is, according to every doctor I've spoken to, the large majority of babies with Down Syndrome die before birth. Worse yet, there is even a good possibility of getting pregnant with a child who has Trisomy 13 which is absolutely lethal. I would love my child regardless of chromosomes-Down Syndrome, Trisomy 13, 46 normal chromosomes-but I don't want to continuously fall in love with a child that I have to say good-bye to before we ever get to say hello. Dr. Braverman even recommended IVF with pre-implantation genetic screening because he knows as well-even if every other issue with me is treated, we cannot change my translocated chromosome or the lucky egg that gets ovulated and fertilized during a natural cycle, and we cannot guarantee that a baby with an "abnormal" chromosome make-up will make it through 9 months of development during pregnancy. Right now, I just want a baby with a smooth pregnancy. I just want to do everything in our power to make sure we are eliminating the issues that could be resulting in my miscarriages, including the chromosome issues. With the route we are taking, I know the only thing that would happen that would cause another loss would be things we can't control like abnormal organ development like a heart defect or a cord accident.

I wish that all it took to have a baby was love because then we wouldn't be going through all of this. Logan would still be here. He would be turning one. And we would be talking about when to start trying for the next one. Unfortunately, love just isn't enough.

Dancing in the Rain

This past weekend my best friend got married. I was honored to stand by her side as a bridesmaid as she said "I do" and sealed her commitment to her new husband with a ring and a kiss. She was a beautiful bride and I could tell she was not only relieved when the ceremony was over (she was getting pretty nervous before it started) but she was happy to be starting the next chapter of her life.

I remember when we were trying on bridesmaid dresses trying to find a style that would look good on the various body types of the women she had chosen to be in her wedding. I couldn't get my measurements done that day, and I couldn't even order my dress when everyone else did. We were planning to start our IVF treatment a month after the dresses had to be ordered and I didn't know if our treatment was going to work. If it did, I would be 23 weeks pregnant with a much more rounded belly than I had at the moment. But I didn't want to take the chance of assuming I would be pregnant for her wedding because I also didn't want the painful reminder when I would be paying to have every part of the dress taken in if our treatment failed to work.

As we all know, I made a good decision by paying the rush shipping instead once we found out I was not pregnant by our IVF cycle and had no frozen embryos to try a frozen transfer prior to my friends wedding.

For a brief moment as I was eating dinner at the head table on Saturday night, I remembered what should have been in that moment. I remembered I should have been 23 weeks pregnant. That my husband and I would have known if we were having a boy or girl. That the next celebration in my life would have been my baby shower. Better yet, if life would have gone the way it should have, I would have had a 6 year old and almost 1 year old sitting with my husband and parents out with the rest of the crowd of people who were at the reception. I wouldn't have been pregnant, and the next celebration in my life would have been our son's first birthday.

Then I remembered, life isn't the way it was supposed to be and there is nothing I can do about it.

I snapped out of my thoughts and the rest of the night I drank and danced like there was no care in my world. I caught up with old high school friends, had a blast with complete strangers, and made a few new acquaintances too. My husband gave me space to mingle and dance like a fool and he also found himself out of the dance floor with me several times. Word to the wise though, don't try to imitate dances from So You Think You Can Dance unless YOU CAN ACTUALLY DANCE! My neck was stiff for 3 days after showing off my inability to "crump" properly! Anyways, we both had fun, and we needed that kind of fun. It was like we had forgotten for one night just how difficult our life has been over the past two years.

It kinda reminded me of when my parent's were separated during my freshman year of high school. It was a horrible year for me emotionally. But I enjoyed living in town closer to my friends instead of way out in the country where I couldn't walk down the street to my friends house. I remember many nights jumping through rain puddles as it was raining and having fun being a goofball with my friends, even though my heart was breaking for my parents. That's what it felt like Saturday night-my friends were dancing in the rain with me again.

I've grown a lot over the past one and a half years. I've gone through phases of anger, jealousy, isolation, avoidance, fear, depression, hopefulness, and acceptance. More importantly, I've learned to recognize there is no right or wrong way to work through grief and I've accepted what I have control over and what I don't. I've learned to enjoy the moment that I'm in, even if the moment isn't the way I wanted it to be. And I've decided that while I have no children to raise-I will treasure the freedom that I still have to travel with my husband alone and to party like a rock star with my friends. After all, once we have children I will need to act like a mature adult all the time right? Well maybe not all the time...but at least around the kiddos:)

Alex and I don't know when our storm is going to be over. We don't know how the future is going to turn out for us. And surprisingly, I'm doing okay with not knowing. I feel content since we have been back from New York that maybe we are on the right track now. And if this next step doesn't work, I will be briefly devastated but I know that with the strength of God I will stand back up and keep fighting for our rainbow baby.

If I had to give advise to my best friend it would be the quote next to this. Marriage isn't all sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies. Sometimes the life we planned isn't the life we end up with. It can be a struggle when you wake up on your second wedding anniversary with no children if you had started planning for children the moment you got married. (I know you say you don't want kids for awhile Amy, but one day you will change your mind and start dreaming of baby showers and nursery decorations!) Hell, I think it's an even bigger struggle when you wait a few years before you start trying and then encounter problems with conceiving or carrying because you regret the time that passed by while you were younger. At least that's the case with other older couples I've known who have infertility. I pray my friends will not have to endure this pain to create their families. But I do know that love and commitment and finding a way to still dance in the rain will get them through if they do encounter the struggles we have. And if they need a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen to their struggles-I will gladly be there for them to let them as a strong sail helping them to adjust to the strong stormy winds.

Follow your Intuition, Always

A woman knows by intuition, or instinct, what is best for herself.

-Marilyn Monroe

Since January 2013 I have had an overwhelming gut feeling that my doctors are wrong. That my babies did not die because they had Down Syndrome. That something else was the cause to their death. That my own body was a baby killer. That I have an un-diagnosed disease that is to blame. That there HAS TO BE another explanation.

I gave my doctors the benefit of the doubt. All my blood work came back normal. Except my TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) was on the high side of normal and my progesterone was on the low side of normal-both things we can correct with some Synthroid and Progesterone supplements. There really was not other explanation-it was the translocated chromosome that continued to cause our babies to have genetic problems and subsequently die before ever being given the opportunity to be born. So we tried to do something about that..we were tired of getting pregnant with babies that were just going to die and cause us continued emotional pain. We followed our doctors recommendations, against all moral values, and attempted IVF with pre-implantation genetic testing. And that failed to even get us pregnant.

What options are we left with? My eggs suck, apparently. They carry genetic disorders. Some that are absolutely deadly-monosomy 13, monosomy 21, and trisomy 13, and some that are "usually" deadly-Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome). Not only do they carry these genetic disorders, but we found out during my IVF that I create many immature eggs that aren't suitable for fertilization. We don't want to waste any more time or money on my eggs-so the solution? Let's use my sisters. She's young and fertile and doesn't carry the translocation and has a healthy child-all great signs that this could be our ticket to having a family.

Yet my inner voice says, that's just a start. That's not my only issue. That could get me pregnant with a beautifully healthy baby, but is my body going to nourish and be able to carry that baby to live birth? Every doctor that I've spoken to tells me yes. But something tells me no. Something tells me this storm is never going to end unless I seek the answers to this voice inside me.

So I did just that. I learned about Dr. Braverman in New York from a fellow recurrent loss mom in one of my online support groups. I did my research on him-he specializes in recurrent pregnancy loss and recurrent failed infertility treatments. He finds answers for women that other doctors don't. We had our testing done in May and we finally got our results yesterday. Every review I read about him was correct-our appointment started an hour and a half late. And he was dressed like a bum with holes in his jeans and a regular Joe off the street shirt. But I am so very glad to have had his testing completed and to have gotten a second opinion from him because now I know my intuition was absolutely correct.

Here are Dr. Braverman's opinions:

#1-My fasting insulin level is too high. Interesting. Kettering Reproductive and Ohio Reproductive had no problem with my level being 17.3 in January before we began our IVF cycle. Yet I found out from a friend who was also going to Kettering Reproductive for IUI treatments that they told her they wanted her insulin level to be below 10. So why wouldn't they want mine before 10 too? That doesn't make any sense. I asked my new doctor about this just 2 weeks ago and he didn't seem concerned either. He did retest me though and my level came back this time at 20. 7. While this is within normal range...this is the very high end of normal, and just like my TSH was at the very high end of normal-this needs to be treated and needs to come down before we attempt another pregnancy. According to Dr. Braverman-he believes I have polycystic ovarian syndrome(PCOS) due to my high Insulin level and the large amount of follicles in my ovaries. He explained that the high insulin levels would cause my ovaries to produce lots of eggs, but lots of very bad quality eggs. He said women with high insulin levels are at risk of hyperstimulation during IVF cycles. Having high Insulin levels and PCOS causes miscarriages too.

The interesting part is two-fold. I've had concerns that maybe, just maybe I have PCOS. It's been a fleeting thought though. One that crossed my mind for a quick second and then I said nah...I can get pregnant too easily and no doctor ever mentioned any cysts on my ovaries or have ever mentioned this as a possibility. But I have a few symptoms-30 lb weight gain in 2 years...but that's just depression and stress and not working out I tell myself. My cycle has been weird the past 2 years...it was ALWAYS every 28 days but since July 2012 it's varied anywhere between 25-38 days and I didn't really have an explanation for this other than-but it's not affecting me from ovulating or getting pregnant. Then my insulin level coming back high normal-and doctors being concerned about this for other women but not me was just strange.

The good news is-we can treat this issue very easily. Dr. Braverman wants me on Metformin to lower my insulin level before and during pregnancy. Easy peasy-just a pill every day. I can do that. He is checking my Anti-mullerian hormone again to see if I do have PCOS or just the metabolism of someone who would have PCOS. I should hear something soon on that.

#2-I have resistant blood flow to my uterus. Wow. I have NEVER had a color flow doppler ultrasound completed before Dr. Braverman did one. He said the blood flow in my ovaries is great...uterus, not so great. Since it is not so great, when I'm pregnant, the babies are not getting an adequate supply of blood from me. This will kill them. Without blood, they cannot survive. Why is my blood not flowing well to my uterus? We don't know. Dr. Braverman suspects endometriosis. He recommends that I have a laproscopy to confirm or deny this suspicion. He also found scaring in my pelvic muscle and he is not sure why that is there because I've never had abdominal surgeries and my D&C's should not have caused scaring into my muscles.

So how do we increase this blood flow? I've already been taking Asprin and that isn't helping. I will be on Lovenox since I have a risk of blood clotting with having Homocystinuria and that will thin my blood out. But this isn't enough. I've done both those medications during my previous two pregnancies too. There are other injections Dr. Braverman would put me on-he just isn't sure which one yet. I will be talking to my OBGYN about getting a laproscopy scheduled now. I brought it up to her back in May and she didn't think it was necessary and didn't think I had any signs of Endometriosis. But I'm going to push the issue now. Why not? We've already met our deductible and everything I do now within the Kettering Health Network is paid at 100% so now is the time to get it done. If I have it, and we clean it out, it could help my blood flow and improve my progesterone level so its a win-win. Yea, it's surgery and I will be off work a day or two-but I'm not messing around this time. If Dr. Braverman thinks its necessary-then I'm doing it.

#3-I have too many T-regulatory cells. Essentially, this means my body naturally feels like it has to constantly fight off infections and invaders. This is only heightened when I am pregnant. These cells believe babies are an outside invader that needs to be rid of. Basically, as I suspected-my body is attacking and killing our babies. With every pregnancy, the t-regulatory cells become more activated and increase in number. According to Dr. Braverman-this will cause earlier losses with each pregnancy. This makes complete sense. Especially within the past year 2 years. With Logan, I miscarried at between 9 & 11 weeks. With Audrey, I miscarried between 4 & 6 weeks. With our IVF embie, it never had a chance to implant.

If we don't treat this issue-there is a VERY high chance I will miscarry again. The treatment is not cheap and requires a couple different injections-some that have to be given by home care nurses. I will do whatever it takes to get my body to the point of accepting a baby as a blessing and allowing me to grow our baby to birth.

#4-I have genes that predispose me to several autoimmune diseases. The most likely disease that I could have is Celiac Disease. The treatment is simple. Or so it seems. I will be attempting a gluten free diet. Hopefully by decreasing or eliminating gluten, I will feel better overall and will not have as many joint pains or abdominal bloating. Hopefully it will also allow my body to stop attacking itself. Recently I started suspecting that maybe I had Celiac Disease-I don't really know why but it's been on my mind. We don't know that I HAVE it-we just know I have a gene that can cause it. And I know if I have a gene that can cause it-somehow I will get it. It never fails.

The biggest thing that really sucks is that I already can't eat much protein. I eat a lot of carbs and a lot of food that has gluten. Which, by the way, I think is what has caused the high insulin level and possible PCOS. The diet for PCOS is low carb, high protein. So I feel like I'm screwed all around. What can I eat? When my diet gets restricted like this I end up giving up and eating whatever I feel like honestly. I haven't been complying very well with my low protein diet or my medication for my Homocystinuria lately because I just get so sick of eating the same things and drinking nasty tasting food supplements. Ugh...I have GOT TO get back on track with all this. I have to do it for our rainbow baby. I will start kicking it in gear on Monday, after my friend's wedding. After all, I can't give up drinking beer before her wedding, right?!?

Whats next? I need to email Dr. Braverman with the contact info for my fertility doctor here in Ohio. They need to talk about my test results and my doctor here in Ohio needs to agree with the treatment plan Dr. Braverman puts together. My doctor in Ohio has to be the one who orders all the medication for me. I need to call my OBGYN and get a laproscopy scheduled. Dr. Braverman has ordered a DNA fragmentation test on my husbands semen which he's going to complete next week. Although our fertility clinic thinks 3% normal sperm morphology is okay, Dr. Braverman is not in agreement with that. He wants to make sure there isn't a lot of fragmentation in the sperm because fragmentation can lead to genetic problems and poor embryo development. My husband may be getting prescribed Clomid to increase his morphology depending on the results of this test. And he is actually willing to take it if he needs to. He finally understands he has a very important part in creating a child for us and we need to do everything we can to make sure we get healthy babies.

Alright-enough of my results. Want to know how our trip to New York went? Here's the down low-China Town is crazy with street vendors EVERYWHERE. It was a little scary the first time we walked down the street. We figured out quickly the other side of the street had way fewer street vendors so we walked on that side the rest of the time. Little Italy has a very cool feel. The streets are blocked off so you can walk in the middle of the streets and there is restaurant after restaurant. Not impressed with the food from De Gennerro though. However, the gelato-A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I got the salt and carmel flavor and it was to die for:) The Statue of Liberty is pretty neat to see in person, but it looks the same as it does on television. Ellis Island had way too much history that it got boring after awhile. It is very interesting though how our ancestors came to America. The 9-11 memorial is pretty. We only saw the fountain at ground zero and didn't go into the memorial museum. Central Park is huge but you really don't need to rent bikes to see it all. We spent more time walking our bikes then riding them because you can't ride them on the walk-ways to see the monuments or features throughout the park. The Metropolitan Art Museum was a snoozer for me, except the African art section with all the Mayan costumes and totem poles. Times Square is crazy. The amount of people walking around on a Monday evening was unreal. It was packed like sardines. The stores are the same as the ones in the malls around here-H&M, American Eagle, Aeropostale. Except the prices were surprisingly cheap. Alcohol is overpriced everywhere you go throughout New York. A 6 pk of beer at the convenience store next to our hotel was $17. The food was okay-not great. The best thing we had was crab and spinach dip at Langen's Irish Pub in the Times Square area. We got dessert at Cake Boss Cafe which was the longest wait ever but totally worth the delicious carrot cake and strawberry shortcake we got. The subway system is confusing at first, but as long as you carry that subway map with you at all times and aren't afraid to ask people for help-you'll figure it out pretty quickly. The train station was byfar the most challenging. They have dozens of tracks your train could be on and don't post your track number until 5-10 minutes before departure so its a mad rush to get to the train before it leaves. There is construction on every street it seems throughout the city. My absolute favorite thing about New York was the street performers. Those people know how to hustle to get some money, but they are entertaining. OH, and The Stand in Gramercy Park was a cool place to spend and evening between their delicious Moscoto and funny comedians. Would I go back to New York? Honestly, probably not. It was a neat experience but we prefer the mountains or the beach.

Overall moral of today's post: 

When You Love a Child that Has Not been Created Yet

I read an article the other week on Still Standing Magazine about the grief of a mother who has lost their child years ago. The article talked about grieving mothers having good days and bad days, happy memories and unbearable gut wrenching memories, moments of hope and moments of intense fear-no matter how long along the mother's child died. It talked about the stereotype, that if the mother is having a good day others may believe she is over the loss of her child, or if she is having a bad day that she should be over it "by now." It talked about the emotional triggers that come from left field unexpectedly and uninvitingly. Everything this article spoke about, I not only agree with but have lived through myself.

When you lose a baby your world is never the same;it has a hole in it that can never be filled. But when you lose multiple babies, your world is shattered into a million pieces and you are left figuring out how the pieces are supposed to fit back together-yet they never will.

I look at what my husband and I have been through-the death of our stillborn daughter and burying out first child, a miscarriage at 7 weeks, a miscarriage at 11 weeks that resulted in a D&C, and a miscarriage at 5 weeks discovered at 8 weeks that resulted in 4 more weeks of my body trying to release the baby that ended in a second D&C. I consider the fact that I was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease that caused the lenses in my eyes to detach and resulted in 5 major eye surgeries in one year and forced me to change my diet since protein was silently killing my body. I recognize the measures we have taken to try to have a baby after we learned the culprit of our babies deaths was my very own DNA since two of my chromosomes are attached and have caused our babies to have an extra chromosome-an IVF with PGD cycle and now an egg donor IVF cycle. I live everyday with the reminder of amount of financial debt we are drowning in, living off credit cards and merely making it paycheck to paycheck still paying on procedures we had done last year. We have survived all of this, some days I don't know how, but most days I think rather well.

I have my moments though. Moments of gut wrenching memories. Moments of feeling hopeless. Moments of questioning every step we take. Moments of wanting to throw in the towel. Moments of intense fear that I can't shake. Last night I had a moment, and today I had another moment.

Last night I was watching The Foster's which has become one of my favorite television series of all time. I was sitting on the couch in my shorts and bra with my hair drenched in hair dye waiting on the dye to process so I could rinse it out. I knew based on the previews of last nights episode something was going to happen to Lena's baby, I just didn't know what. I knew it was going to be a hard episode for me to watch. I just didn't expect that I would be hyperventilating with huge crocodile tears streaming down my face. I didn't expect to feel the rawness of the pain that I felt 6 years ago when we were told Riley had died inside me and I would have to deliver her at only 24 weeks into my pregnancy. I didn't expect to feel such deep heartache when Lena's own mother walked into the hospital room and wrapped her arms around Lena or to remember what it felt like to have my mother, father, and sisters rush to the hospital after they learned that Riley had died and embrace me with their hugs once they got there. I didn't expect to feel like I was the one on the television show losing my baby. I didn't expect to be overwhelmed with fear that anything could happen that could kill my future baby too.

Maybe for the first time last night I realized I love a child that hasn't even been created yet and won't even be created by me.

Only couples who have been through fertility treatments would understand what that feels like. It's not like when other couples make the decision to start trying to conceive a baby-I've been there too...even after losing 2 babies I can't say that when we were trying for our third or even fourth baby that I loved them before they were ever created. I loved them from the moment that I knew they were there, and I will now love them for the rest of my life on Earth and in Heaven. But never before the positive pregnancy test did I have a love for my children. Maybe that's because I didn't have a timeline in my head of when they were going to be created or come into existence...when it happens, it happens. When we had our first IVF with pre-implantation genetic testing cycle...I can say that I definitely envisioned the cycle working for us and at times felt am immense hope that our forever rainbow baby was going to come as a result of our cycle. I saw myself delivering a healthy screaming baby and my sister in the delivery room with me just as I was with her when she delivered my niece. Once we had our egg retrieval it felt like those dreams started fading with every day that passed. I tried my hardest not to remain attached to our little embies because I didn't want to feel the sting when my face fell flat on the pavement from tripping over my dreams. But I still felt it when the one embie we transferred evaporated into my body and didn't continue to develop into our beautiful rainbow baby.

When we decided our next step along this crazy emotional journey was going to be an egg donor IVF cycle, I was very apprehensive. Could I really love a child that I didn't create? Could I bond with a child that I'm carrying even though I know that this child isn't biologically mine? Will I be resentful towards a child that came to exist because my own children died? How would I handle it if this child grew up and got angry at me and told me I wasn't his or her "real" mother? Is it going to be awkward raising a child that has an aunt as its biological mother? There are times when I thought I couldn't do it, that I couldn't create room in my heart for any child that I didn't create. I prayed on it though, and I began reading a blog by another Baby Quest Foundation grant recipient who has been in these shoes I'm wearing. She's had a failed IVF cycle using her own eggs, then they tried an egg donor IVF cycle using her sisters eggs. When that cycle also failed to work for them, they decided to adopt a frozen embryo that neither her or her husband created with their own genetics. Reading Maya's blog helped me to accept that we very well may be having a baby that was not created from my genetic material but grown inside my womb. It helped to realize that I could love a baby that is created from my husband's and sister's combined DNA. It helped me to be at peace with our decision to try an egg donor cycle.

Watching last night's episode of The Foster's brought my love to life for this baby that has not been created yet. I started fearing all the possible things that could go wrong once I'm carrying that baby. I'm not oblivious to the fact that babies die even when they have all 46 normal chromosomes. They die because organs fail to develop properly. They die because of blood clots. They die because of infections. They die because of cord accidents. They die from pre-term labor. They even die for no reason at all. There are hundreds or reasons babies die before they are ever born, and it scares the shit out of me to be completely honest. I LOVE this baby that will be created in November and I want to give birth to this baby in July. I want to rock this baby to sleep and sing this baby lullaby's. I want to change dirty diapers and wake up a million times a night to breast feed. I want take naps on the couch on Sundays as a family with my husband, our cat, and our baby. I want to take walks on summer afternoons while I'm on maternity leave. I want to have a home filled with baby items and I want to decorate a nursery. I want to take family pictures. I want my husband to be Santa Claus every Christmas until our child figures out the secret. I want my life to revolve around my family and less around my job. I want to teach my baby how to roll over, sit up, crawl, walk, and talk. I want our Saturday nights to consist of Disney Movies. I want this baby just as much as I wanted all the ones that were created before him or her.

After all the fear that came upon me last night, today almost took away the complete possibility of this child even being created...and I lost it. The nurse at the fertility clinic informed me the psychologist me, my husband, and my sister met with last week could not "recommend" my sister to be an egg donor. What?!? You mean to tell me a psychologist gets to decide the fate of our future? According to the nurse the psychologist thought my sister was "pleasant and appropriate." But that stupid 600 question test that my sister had to take before she got to talk to the psychologist apparently thought my sister was not being 100% honest with her answers since they asked the same questions a million different ways and she answered the questions differently each time. Ok...so what? This is my sister we are talking about...I think I know her better than some test that was confusing and annoying to her. Don't we have the right to waive the results? Apparently we don't, but the fertility doctor does. For 2.5 hours I sat at work fearing that the doctor might not waive the results...that our journey to have a child would be over or that we would have to figure out what our next step would be even though we aren't ready to look at any other options right now. I locked myself in the bathroom and let out some disgusting sounding crys and had to gasp for my breath a couple times. I felt myself getting angry again-"why God is this always happening...why are our plans always falling apart...why can't we have a child...why do we have to do through this pain?" Then the phone rang as I'm sitting on the toilet locked inside the stall texting my friend asking for prayers. It was the nurse. She called to say Dr. Hofmann waived the psychological test results and will allow us to keep my sister as a donor because he knows how daunting the test is and how tricky the test can be. The nurse said, "ultimately Dr. Hofmann wants you and your husband kissing baby cheeks." I lost it again. That's all I want too.

So hear we are. Still moving forward with this egg donor cycle-thank you Lord. My husband's semen analysis came back drastically improved from taking his vitamins. We wouldn't even need to do ICSI let alone IMSI if we didn't want to spend the extra $1500. But, we are going to spend the extra money because I want to do everything we can to make sure we get as many fertilized eggs as possible and to prevent freak of nature things from happening like two sperms fertilizing the same egg (yes, it's happened before). We leave for New York on Saturday and meeting with Dr. Braverman on Tuesday morning to go over our immunological testing results. I am praying these results are going to give us continued peace and that nothing too severe was discovered from the testing that could prevent me from ever carrying a baby to term.

Please pray for safe travels as we brave the NY traffic and pray for our continued peace along this journey to parenthood.

Creating Life is Amazing, Any Way You Do It

I got home from work last night at 12:30am. After four hours of sleep my alarm clock began ringing telling me it was time to wake up for a very long day of appointments and then working my eight hour shift in the hospital. My sister had to drop off her very grumpy 4-year old at daycare at 6:30am to join us for the morning spent in Cincinnati. We could have no coffee, or in my case-sugary beverages like a capachino or mocha-and we could have no food before any of our appointments. We had to be fasting for one of our blood tests. At almost 7:00pm, I don't know how I am going to make it another 5 hours before I get to lay my head down on my pillow!

Despite my pure exhaustion, we got a lot accomplished today and I am very happy we are a few steps closer to making some babies.

Our first appointment for the day was with the psychologist to knock our our psychological assessments. While Alex and I met with the psychologist to share where we have been and we are going on our journey, my poor sister had to take a nearly 600 question psychological evaluation. Why? Because apparently this is the federal government's way of ensuring a psychopath does not become an egg donor. I think about a fourth of the way through my sister wanted to shoot herself in the head to be honest! I knew this appointment was going to be annoying for her, so I wanted to show her our appreciation for taking the time out of her day she could have slept in or used to spend more time with her daughter. Before we went into the building I gave her a card with a heartfelt message and a gift certificate to local boutique store hoping she could treat herself to something cute on us. I got a voicemail a few hours ago from her thanking me for it...so I think it helped her to know we aren't taking advantage of her kindness and appreciate more than we can really express.

We knew we would be discussing with the psychologist our plans for raising our children that were created from my sisters eggs. As a social worker there are certain things that I am absolutely positive about from experience working with children in the foster care system and children who have been adopted at birth. I believe EVERY child wants to know where they came from-good, bad, or ugly. I believe in being honest about where children come from because they will find out on their own if their parents do not tell them and that could create a boat load of anger towards the parents they were not prepared to deal with. So long story short...Alex and I agree 100% that if we conceive and give birth to a baby that is created with my sisters eggs, our child(ren) will be told about their very special creation. They will be told that their Aunt Ashley loved us so much that she wanted to help us have a family. They will be told that I am their birth mother, and she is their biological mother, or mother by DNA. They will be told about their siblings in Heaven who were created before them. They will be told that their cousin Raegan is their most special cousin of all, because they are half-siblings. Do we know exactly how or when all of this information will come out? Not at all. Most likely in bits and pieces and whatever is appropriate for their developmental age. The really cool thing is that we found out today there are children's books that we could purchase to explain to our children the very special way they were created with so much love through egg donation. Aunt Ashley will be the coolest Aunt of all...I'm sure of that:)

Following our appointment with the psychologist, we took a hop-skip-and a jump over to the fertility clinic to meet with Dr. Hofmann and his staff. First up on the agenda-Alex's semen analysis. We won't know the results until Friday most likely. Hopefully those vitamins he's been taking has helped. Second item to tackle-signing consent forms that indicate our wishes for our embryos in several different scenarios. The scenarios included: death of one partner, death of both partners, divorce, termination of IVF treatment, and failure to pay embryo storage fees. Our options for each of these included donating the embryos to a specific person, donating the embryos to the clinic for anonymous embryo adoption, and destroying the embryos. These questions really showed us how much we truly value to creation of life, even before a heartbeat ever develops. In none of the scenarios did we choose to destroy the embryos. Why would we waste such a gift? Why would we not offer these tiny miracles to someone else who would love them just as much as we would love them? If we are fortunate enough to have an excessive amount of embryos that we do not need because either our family is complete or because we are both dead, I pray to God that we can provide another couple with the gift of life through our donated embies.

Once our consents were completed, we had our blood drawn (for the 164 thousandth time for me) and gave our urine sample to finish up our medical screening that is required before we start our IVF cycle. Then Alex left and he and Ashley headed back to Minster so he could go to work and she could pick up her daughter from daycare. I stayed and met with the embryologist and financial coordinator to finish up the morning appointments we had scheduled. The embryologist was absolutely AMAZING!! He spent a lot of time showing me videos of how he selects the good sperm from the semen sample and injecting them into the eggs. Then he showed me the latest and greatest technology called IMSI (Intra-cytoplasmic morphologically selected injection). Technology is absolutely amazing...seriously, a computer program that magnifies sperm by 800 and tells the embryologist which sperm are the very best to select based on the size of their heads, shape of their necks, and amount of tails? It was pretty fascinating to see this. This procedure reduces the miscarriage rate by improving the quality of sperm that are selected to fertilize the eggs. I don't know if we are going to have to do this procedure or not-but its good to know that if we need it, it's available at the clinic we have chosen to go to. He also showed me videos of how his lab does the pre-implantation genetic screening biopsies on blastocyst stage embryos and videos of embryos developing by cell division. I am stoked that this clinic and lab takes pictures of their patients embryos before they transfer them-one more thing we can use to show our babies how they were created!

The creation of life is absolutely an amazing process. It is a beautiful symbol of love. No matter how you create your family, remember-any way you do it is beautifully amazing!

A Protocol that Works

My test cycle has officially come to an end...and I am so happy to say, IT WORKED! For the past two months my doctors have had me on the exact same medication that I will be on when we do our actually Egg Donor IVF cycle.

June 1st-June 19th: Birth control pills

June 11th-July 6th: Lupron injections

June 23rd-July 9th: Estrace pills (estrogen) with increasing dose every 4-5 days

Today I had my ultrasound to see how my uterus responded to this medication protocol. The goal was to get my uterine lining about 7 cm because in order for a baby to implant this is what the lining needs to be. Today my uterine lining measured 10 cm which is amazingly awesome! In my doctor's and nurse's words today, my uterus is "beautiful, retroverted or not." Of course with it being retroverted (tilted back like it always is), the resident didn't know where to find it but once it was found, it was all good:)

When we do our actual Egg Donor IVF cycle, I will have an ultrasound to check my lining just like I did today. The ultrasound will be on the day of my sister's egg retrieval, and if I respond the same way to the medication then as I did this time, the changes of an embryo implanting when we transfer on day 3 or 5 will be very high! This is very uplifting to hear.

The only concerns that I have about our Egg Donor IVF cycle not working is my Progesterone level and any other medical condition that may cause a miscarriage or stillbirth, like my Homocystinuria. But I am more than confident in the clinic that I am going to that we are going to get these issues figured out and will have a good treatment plan together before we start the IVF cycle. They listen to my concerns, which shows me right there they care and they are going to do everything they can to make this work. We find out the result of the testing that we had done with Dr. Braverman in New York at the end of this month and Dr. Hofmann at Bethesda Fertility Center where we are going for our treatment is more than willing to work with Dr. Braverman if there are any significant findings that we should treat to increase the potential for a successful pregnancy and happy, healthy baby. The nurse today told me they would be happy to check my progesterone level a few days after the embryo transfer to see if we need to increase my dose or supplement with another form of progesterone, which is very relieving so we aren't waiting until pregnancy test day to find out my progesterone is too low to maintain a baby. I am super pleased with my medical team and very confident that this is the right place for us!

Adding to why I love Bethesda Fertility Clinic so much, while I was sitting in the lobby waiting to be called back for my ultrasound, they had either K-Love or Air-1 radio on with christian rock music, my favorite music of all. It was very calming for me, and has always been my go-to music whenever I need to feel a calm or peace, or need to feel a sign that things are going to be okay. Dr. Hofmann walked out to the lobby to grab something for another patient and cheerfully greeted me and said as he was walking back into the office area, "I think I just saw angels, but I could be wrong." It was just me sitting in the lobby at that time...so either he was be super complimentary of me or my angel babies were there with me today! Either way, it was a peaceful beginning to my appointment today:)

So now I finish up my Estrace prescription, stop the injections, start the Provera, and in a few days will start my new menstrual cycle. I will be hormone free until October, which will be nice. Tomorrow I meet with an attorney to discuss the contract we need to have typed up and signed by me, my husband, and my sister so we should have all the legal stuff out of the way by the end of this month. And next week we go to Cincinnati to complete our psychological testing, my husband's sperm analysis, and will sign all the consents to get this party started! My sister's medical clearance testing should be the end of August, and after that...we are good to go! October will be here before we know it:)