Blood Work Day Tomorrow

God says not to worry, y'know, but uhm...I'm human and that just comes too easily to me. So, yup, I'm nervous about tomorrow.

I'll be going in for blood work in the morning and probably won't get a call with the test results until mid-afternoon. Tomorrow will be the longest day of my life.

What if it's positive? Holy cow we're parents!

What if it's negative? swallows hard

Breath in...breath out...

TMI to follow.......skip the rest of this post if you get queasy talking about bodily stuff. You've been warned.

Last night I had terrible constipation in the middle of the night. It was so bad my whole body was shaking and my entire stomach muscles were all seizing at the same time. I was hot and sweaty and feeling miserable, BUT not sick...just a reaction to the meds. My body is taking it hard.

I was in so much pain I thought I might faint and fall off the toilet, whacking my head against the side of the tub -- seriously! So, I called Chris in to be with me. He was so kind and just held my hand, put a cold compress on my neck and reassured me it would all be okay. We were in there a good 45 minutes, finally falling back to sleep in bed a little while later.

Then on my lunch break today I had the opposite issue. Diarrhea! Oh so much fun! I won't go into details there but suffice is to say, these drugs are really starting to hit me hard.

My butt is so sore from Chris poking me with the needles. I have some good size bruises on my butt cheeks, too. I was riding the elevator down to the office in the morning and the elevator shook a little as it came to the ground floor tossing me a back against the grab bar which just happens to be the exact height where the bruises are. Tears of pain pricked in the corners of my eyes as I was jostled against the bar and my left side bruise was badly bumped.

I have to be careful of those bruises.... They just hurt so badly! It's all worth it though...and Chris was cautious when he pricked me with this evening's shot. I love that man so much. He's gonna be a great daddy and he's already a great husband.

We have decided, no matter tomorrow's blood work results, we will praise the name of the Son of God. His will for our lives, every step of the way.  It's all about You, Jesus.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Phil 4:6

Irish Luck

I took a dollar store pregnancy test at lunch today and it came out negative. Off I raced to google to see if I could find out any info and came across this information in a post:

"It can take 3-5 days for the embryo to implant and another 5 days at least for the hormones to show up on a blood test and even longer for them to be strong enough to show up on a HPT."

I guess I just have to wait until the March 1st blood test to see if it shows a strong enough test.... Oh I hate this waiting!

I will say I'm feeling some symptoms of pregnancy but they could be drug related, too. Even before Embryo Transfer Day on Tuesday I had sore nipples and boobies... I won't go into too much detail since we probably do have one or two men that read this, but it has been difficult to deal with this problem.

I will have to buy bigger sized bras and panties already. Everything is tight and uncomfortable. I didn't think I'd have to do that for months yet!

I am not feeling queasy yet, but I do feel a pretty regular "pressure" in my belly... sometimes I mistake it for having to go to the bathroom during the day. 

*sigh* I just wish we knew NOW...but Chris is believing.... Oh it's so hard....the not knowing is killing me! 

We have given the baby a nickname already until we know if it's a boy or a girl.   

Clover for Chris is Irish and we hope the luck of the Irish will be with us with God's constant blessing.

Lastly, I am actually in my third week in my first trimester, which is quite confusing for most folks. Did you know during your first week you're not actually pregnant? Yep, the first week of "pregnancy" is when you're ovulating and your body is preparing for you to have sex and make a baby. Then the magical moment happens between husband and wife! cue romantic music here During your second week the little egg becomes and embryo, as it travels down the Fallopian tube, beginning to grow cell by cell until it reaches the uterus where it finds a home attached to your side. 

So, if you think about --

Week One or so was the start of all my fancy expensive drugs.

Week Two has already happened when we removed the Eggs from my Follicles and grew the Eggs in a petri dish, allowing the Eggs to mature to a "Five Day Blastocyst" gestation. They then froze the embryos in status until ready for use.

Now, placing this already Five Day Blast embryo, "Clover" continued to grow on Day 6 (Embryo Transfer Day Tuesday) and Day 7 (Wednesday) 

Today is the first day of week three!

I do hope to start feeling symptoms soon.... 

Dear God....hear our prayer.....

Love you guys... :)

Embryo Transfer Day Feb 16 2016

Feeling some cramping and uncomfortableness this afternoon, but it's all good!



Praise The Lord!

Tomorrow is only a day away

 Tomorrow is The Big Day! It's 100% go time! I keep looking at Chris and saying, "you're going to be a dad tomorrow" and he keeps looking at me saying, "and you're going to be a mum." 

We have to believe. We have to believe in The Lord's timing for this otherwise it's all for naught. I will not bring negative thinking into this equation until I'm told that I need to. We are SO excited! Chris and I feel really blessed to be given this chance by God to just even try to have kids. Not everyone gets that chance. 

It's funny, y'know, how many people do you know who know that exact day and time their child was a little wee fetus in their mother's wombs? grin We will always have that memory together.

So, IVF will be between 11:30 to 12 noon. We need to arrive their by 10:45 and I need to drink one litre of water starting at 10:30. Yes, everything does seem to be so specific! I will be very uncomfortable with all that water sloshing around in my belly. I remember having ultrasounds years ago and being told to drink a litre of water before I came to the ultrasound clinic. Oh, how painful that was! I am not looking forward to that part tomorrow.

A good church friend and prayer partner will be driving us there and back. It's wonderful have extended family through the church like we do... I can't wait to have a chance to give back like that one day to someone else...

My best friend Lana, aka Auntie Lana, is so excited she doesn't even know if she'll be able to concentrate at work tomorrow. I think she's quite possibly even more excited than Chris and me combined.

Chris and I have taken the day off tomorrow for the procedure. (Vacation day!) I will need to rest in the afternoon after the little wee one is placed in my uterus and for the next 17 days we will be praying that it "sticks"! 

Seventeen days to wait and find out if I really and truly am pregnant. Those will be the longest seventeen days of my life! Ah well.... I'll just have to stay busy without over doing it... 

Well, that's all the rambling I have for tonight... I'm so scattered in my thoughts I can't really sound philosophical tonight. All weekend I've been grinning like an idiot as I danced away one Cloud Nine... snort I think it'll be awhile before my feet touch solid ground again.

Chris and I love you guys and we're very thankful you all are celebrating each and every step in this journey with us. Pray...pray for the little wee one, would you? ..........We're going to be parents tomorrow! Eeek!

Trust in The Lord...

Yesterday afternoon I spoke with a fellow co-worker whom I have mentioned before who has also gone through infertility at the same clinic Chris & I are using for our baby making. I relayed my angst and frustration at our Monday morning appointment's findings. It was so frustrating to hear there was fluid in my uterus and seeing the doctor's look of complete confusion  as to what to do next.

She said I should call the clinic and tell our doctor about our feelings. Ask for a "plan of action" for Friday if there is still fluid in my uterus. She was right... I did have a voice in all of this and I do need to become "my best advocate" as her words stated to me.

After leaving a message for our doc yesterday afternoon, he called me back this morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk with him very long because I just happened to be at the hospital for another appointment today about entirely different matter. Still, the doctor did give us some food for thought...

They really don't know why there is fluid in my uterus. They believe that there is some serious correlation to to taking large doses of estrogen. He did state that lately they have seen more and more patients come in for their ultrasounds only to discover fluid in the "sac". Typically they wouldn't like to proceed with such a thing as this, but its fairly unknown how this will affect our fetus.

He did mention that one of the other doctors at the clinic had a patient come in on the 7th who also had "a large quantity of fluid in her sac" she decided to proceed with Progesterone  IM (inter-muscular injection shots) which meant she was agreeing to go forth with our next step of Embryo Transfer Day. She had just come back into the clinic today and her sac now shows a much more reduced amount of fluid. (Good news!)

So, now we're at a decision we will have to make. Do we scratch this round because of the fluid issue, or do we say "go for it!" and proceed with IM shots, potentially taking a risk at the results which could affect our lives and the lives of another human being in my belly.

If we wait, we may never get a chance. This could be a continued problem for me. They've already found fluid in my uterus on two separate occasions. (Once before estrogen pills commenced and once this past week.) If we never get this chance then we will have to wait for adoption or foster care as another option to raise our children.

There were two thoughts that came to mind when I began to pray on this subject as we rode the bus home from our hospital appointment. First, I prayed and immediately this verse in Proverbs came to mind:

New bible from my husband for our 2 year anniversary of the date we met.

Chris and I do not want to make a decision based on our feelings. Yes, we want children but our ultimate goal in life is to trust The Lord our God completely with our very life, our every thought and our every action. Good or bad that comes our way we will praise His name. 

We don't want to jump just because it's our greatest desire to have kids (and we want them in our lives NOW) but we also don't want to hesitate out of fear about all the "what ifs". 

Second, we don't know if there are other women, not going through IVF, who may very well in fact have fluid in their uterus and are able to carry babies to term without any problems whatsoever. Our lives, or rather my uterus is so closely monitored almost on a daily basis because of infertility but what about all those other mums out there who conceive without any issue. I'm sure at least some of them have fluid in the sac because of greater (but natural) estrogen levels. 

Our doctor is going to give me another call later today. The second call will be where we decide if we're proceeding with IM injections or not... Not that there's any pressure or anything...chuckles

Chris and I have gone through a lot in our lives within our medical backgrounds. We've both had medical issues from childhood and although the idea of proceeding into uncharted territory is a little risky and scary, it's doesn't paralyse us with fear. Growing up, my mother taught me to keep trying and moving forward even if you're scared out of your mind. You will get through this because this too shall pass.

I can remember being in a complete panic attack at the notion of moving from the bunny hill to the intermediate hill downhill skiing at Edelweiss. Alone, my mum went off the the bathroom, looked at herself in the mirror and said, "You can do this, Joanie. You have to do this for her (Rosie)." She stepped out of the bathroom and told me we were going up the intermediate slope. At the age of 10, I threw the biggest hissy fit any child ever has. I looked like a two-year stubborn toddler in desperate need of a nap as she dragged me screaming at the top of my lungs to the ski slope, lifted me onto the chair lift and listened to me scream and cry the entire ride up the mountain. When we got up to the mountain with our ski volunteer trailing behind us, my mum gave me a no-nonsense push and encouraged me to ski down that mountain.

I did it, y'know, and I love it. I was proud of myself and the first words out of my mouth when I saw mum waiting for me to catch up to her at the bottom of the mountain were, "Let's do that again!" 

This is one of those times. This is one of those times to feel the fear and do it anyway. I'm trusting in The Lord. I am not leaning on my own understanding (which is "I don't know what will happen). 

God has told me, clear as a bell, that I am going to have children that will know Him. That's all I need to know. deep scary breath

We hope and pray that come Friday morning's ultrasound there will not be any fluid in my uterus any longer but if there is Chris and I are in this together.....and God is with us.

"Rubber Butt" the suitcase said...

Chris' inter-muscular injection education was way more interesting than I expected it to be. I'm glad I went with him since I have always been the one to prepare most of the syringes for our fertility drugs.

Today's nurse had a dummy with her. Well...technically just a quarter of a dummy. She pulled out this heavy blue suitcase that had "Rubber Butt" label on it. I thought of Shana and all the jokes she would've most likely said right about now if she had been with me.

I looked at the nurse with a curious you've-got-to-be-kidding-me expression on my face. She was deadpan in response.

It was a rubber butt...literally.... I mean I thought maybe it was her nickname or something "Hey, Rubber Butt come check this chart out! This patient's bio is a hoot!" but no... just a butt...inside a blue suitcase...

The butt had blue and black marker lines on the right cheek. There was a cross like blue mark sectioning off four cheek quadrants and in the top right square a round black "target" area was circled. She began to explain it was imperative Chris use this target area on both cheeks when injections were done. Our goal was to avoid the muscle nerve running through the middle of our cheeks.

Very similar to today's rubber butt

Thankfully, we came home with detailed butt injection instructions, but we won't start with these injections until the results from Friday's ultrasound come back "clean" of fluid.

I did voice our frustration about this morning's ultrasound result. Our afternoon nurse seemed to be unfazed by the fluid and stated "that's something that does happen sometimes." with a little shrug of her shoulders. I'm hoping she wasn't trying to just set us at ease and it really and truly is "no big deal".

I guess we will see.... Not much we can do about it until Friday. Thankfully, I think this week we'll be a busy work week. We have enough going on here to keep us distracted the majority of the time.

We are still feeling frustrated and numb but we've decided to keep praying through this difficult time. It's hard to know what to pray for exactly, but we just keep repeating, "Your will, Lord" and our hope is that His will, will be the children our hearts already long for.

G'night all...love you...!

Frustration and Numbness

Pure frustration. That's what I'm feeling. Chris is feeling numb. You just get to a point where bad news just doesn't even penetrate anymore. I don't think I've ever wanted to swear at a doctor so much than I have today -- and that's saying something because I've seen A LOT of doctors in my lifetime with all my medical issues.

Today's ultrasound showed more fluid in my uterus. Yup, go ahead and say it. I have said it too. Dangnabit is the nice way to put it!

What does this mean? We don't even really know. When we were done with the blood work and ultrasound, we were ushered into one of the little consultation rooms where we sat and sat and sat waiting for our doctor. I told Chris he was probably looking at my ultrasound now and seeing the fluid that I could very visibly see when my exam was going on. I knew he was going to see fluid again. I just seem to have really crappy luck with all this...

Doc came in and talked about the fact that some people with blocked Fallopian tubes do have fluid in their uterus. Most people that have this issue have blockages further up the Fallopian tubes but because my blockage is right at the "shoulder" of the tubes this can't be the reason for the fluid. Then, doc just looked at me, stumped, unable to figure out what to say next. It's quite obvious to Chris and I that they don't know what's wrong with me or how to fix it.

When I look at "fluid in the uterus" in google lots of things about "cancer" come up, but that has been ruled out, several times now. What else could it be? We can't proceed until the fluid is gone.

I am to go in again on Friday @ 7:20 am for another ultrasound. He's hoping to fluid will be gone by then.

In the meantime, we are going back to the fertility clinic for our afternoon appointment at 1:45 today so Chris can have his "inter muscular injection education" and we've also been instructed to continue to take 2 mg of estrogen 3 times per day until Friday.

I'm so sick of these little estrogen pills........after awhile it gets a bit painful putting them inside of me over and over again....sigh....

We are not giving up.......but I'm hoping all of you good friends and family will allow us to lean on you right now. We're feeling pretty beat up and defeated. *Sniffle* I admit I'm near tears as I type this.

I love you guys......:)