Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! I hope that everyone has had a wonderful day and has been able to reflect and focus on what they are thankfuly for. Today was a good day, but kind of an odd day at the same time. I was kind of sad today knowing that my mom was spending Thanksgiving alone and that she's sick again. It's hard being away from family during the holidays. I am so thankful for so many things. God has truly blessed us with so much and I try really hard each day to stop and thank Him for all the little things too. Everyday I thank God for Chris. I thank Him for making Chris and I thank Him for sending Chris to me. Infertility is a tough road to navigate, but I can't imagine a better partner to walk through this journey and life with.

Today I definitely felt a little sad that we can't be thankful for our miracle yet. However, we are so very thankful for our three frozen embryos and I know that the holidays will help the time to fly by for us.

I am also very thankful for each one of you that reads our blog. Thank you for taking the time to follow along on our journey. Your constant support and prayers mean more than you will ever know!

Moving forward with the frosties

We had our follow up appointment with Dr. G on Thursday and I feel like it went really well. This is the appointment that Chris and I lovingly refer to as the "What the heck went wrong this time?" appointment. :-) Once again, Dr. G feels like we will eventually get pregnant with IVF and that it's just a game of chance. We decided to move forward with a FET (frozen embryo transfer) in January. As I mentioned before, Dr. G wants me to sit out one cycle and then with my December cycle I will be on BCP and Lupr.on to suppress ovulation. I will then start taking Estr.ace and Proges.terone to thicken my endometrial lining before the transfer. I really don't know that much about FET so if any of you girls out there have any tips or info please them along my way!

My body decided to get revenge as of yesterday and once again the horrible cramps and migraines are back. At least I'm moving forward with this new cycle, though. I'm glad that it only took 4 days this time after I stopped the hormones. Hopefully this will be a normal cycle and won't drag on forever like it did last time. I'm hoping that we will be able to put all this infertility nonsense behind us after the new year. I hope that 2010 turns out to be a much better year than 2009 has been. I'm also having a hard time with the fact that I will probably be 30 or close to it by the time we have a baby. That's assuming, of course, that the FET works or that the next "fresh" IVF cycle works if we have to do another one. I'm trying to remind myself that God's plans for our family are so much more amazing than we could ever imagine and it won't matter how old I am when we finally get our miracle.

In other news, the germs have finally found me. :-( I hate being sick and I really hate being sick with a migraine. I think I just have allergies or a minor cold, so nothing major. It's just annoying.

Thank you to all of you for the sweet comments after our last disappointment. It's such a comfort for Chris and I to know that we have so many people praying for us and sending well wishes our way! The power of prayer is amazing and we have definitely felt all of your prayers this week.

Ok, this is starting to get old

So, our beta blood test was yesterday and unfortunately, it was negative...again. The good news, though, is that they were able to freeze three embryos for us so we'll be able to move forward with a frozen embryo transfer in January. We have a follow-up appointment with Dr. G on Thursday afternoon and we'll discuss the logistics of this type of transfer. Thankfully a frozen transfer will mean less meds for me to take and it will be a faster turn around time too. He wants me to sit out a cycle again to allow my body time to rest before we move forward again. With the holidays coming up this will actually be a good time to take a break for a month.

Chris and I were really disappointed yesterday when we got the call from the nurse but I can't say that we were all that surprised with the news. We had tried to prepare ourselves for this outcome as much as possible. The last several months I have prayed that this cycle would work and that it would in God's plans for us to be blessed with our miracle this time. I also prayed, though, that if it was negative again that He would protect our hearts and give us the strength to move on and keep our eyes focused on Him so that we wouldn't be too discouraged. We definitely felt His presence with us yesterday and even though He didn't answer our first prayer, He definitely answered the second one. After we made the phone calls to our families, we dried the tears, got in the car and headed to Olive Garden to pig out. :-) After Olive Garden we headed to Garden Ridge to buy some new Christmas Lights. Comfort food and retail therapy can do wonders.

Ever since college, Chris and I have made it a tradition to watch our all time favorite Christmas movie together..."Christmas Vacation". We LOVE that movie and even though we can recite all the lines it still makes us laugh each time we watch it. Since my family is coming to stay with us for Christmas this year Chris has decided to go all out with the Christmas lights and decorations. This weekend, he will become Clark Griswold, but the decorations will not be tacky! Also, to my family reading this...don't worry. We will NOT be drinking eggnog out of glasses shaped like a moose's head either. :-)

Chris and I have both decided that we are going to focus on enjoying the holidays this year and we are not going to let this disappointment spoil them for us. I'm not saying that the holidays will be easy, but I'm determined to enjoy them and get through them to the best of our abilities. In the words of Clark Griswold, "We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny * Kaye." And yes, I omitted the bad word. :-)

Inspiration

I really don't have much to share as we are almost in the middle of the last week of our TWW. It's been pure torture so far, but did I really expect anything different? I had my last acupuncture appointment today. I won't have another appointment unless I find out that I'm pregnant next week. I sure hope I'm walking through the doors of the acupuncture place sooner rather than later. :-)

I wanted to share a video with all of you. This has become one of my most favorite songs and it is such a comfort to me. I love Kari Jobe and this song is just amazing. It's called "You Are For Me". This is one of my go-to songs on my i.pod when I'm feeling bummed or just need to feel comforted. I hope that it can provide some inspiration and comfort to you as well. Enjoy! :-)

P.S. Make sure that you pause my music player on my blog so that the two do not play over each other.

Everyone beware...the hormones have officially taken over

The double dose of progesterone has definitely begun to take its toll. Last time I was only on 100mg three times a day and this cycle Dr. G upped my dose to 200mg three times a day, plus the estrogen (same dose as last time). I feel like the hormones have officially taken over. I am no longer in control of my thoughts or emotions, so watch out! I started my day off today by looking at some photos on Facebook that really hurt my feelings so I spent the next 10 minutes sitting in an empty office with my tissues just waiting for the onslaught of tears to stop. I would have gotten my feelings hurt anyway, but the hormonal imbalance just escalated things. I emailed Chris to tell him what happened and when he called to check on me the tears started again as soon as I heard his voice ask me, "Are you ok?" Ugh. Thankfully Chris came and picked me up for lunch. It was nice to get out of the office for an hour and get some fresh air.

I am feeling so isolated today. I feel like no one in real life really gets me and understands what I'm going through. I feel like people who I thought were my friends have just totally bailed on me. Has infertility done this to me, have I done it to myself or am I just plain crazy right now because of the extra 600mg of progesterone that's pumping through my body everyday??? I hate not being in control of my emotions. I sure hope that there's a bright light shining at the end of this tunnel. I hope that all this emotional turmoil is worth it.

I do have to say, though, that I am so grateful to have such a supportive husband. Chris doesn't always know the right thing to say to me (if you know us in real life I'm sure you're getting a good laugh out of that statement), but he can always make me laugh. Sometimes I feel like it is just the two of us against the rest of the world.

Here's hoping for a restful and relaxing weekend! Thanks for letting me vent. It's a necessary part of this whole process. :-)

And it begins...

Our embryo transfer went really well today. Dr. G told us that we had two great blastocysts to transfer and that there were actually three other embryos that they were watching to see if they would be able to be frozen tomorrow. Yay! My acupuncture appointment before the transfer was really great. I just felt so calm and relaxed going into the transfer, with the exception of feeling as if my bladder might burst at any moment. :-) That is the only bad part about the embryo transfer. I hate having to drink that much liquid in order to fill my bladder to the brim and then having to hold it. Not fun.

Now the dreaded two week wait begins. My beta blood test is scheduled for Nov. 16th. I'm pretty confident that we won't cheat and test before then. Last time, we tested the night before our beta test. This time I think we'll wait until that morning or even wait until we get back home. Neither of us can stand the thought of looking at another negative HPT. My 29th birthday is tomorrow so we're hoping and praying that I get the best birthday present ever! Thank you so much to all of you who have prayed for us and sent us well wishes during this cycle. I can't even begin to describe how comforting it is to have such a great support system. We definitely couldn't make it through this journey without all of you!

Here are some pictures from today:

Right before the embryo transfer

Chris holding up one finger for each of our 9 embryos

Our two beautiful embryos!

Snuggle in little embryos! I promise to give you a nice, warm home.

Plus One

I called Dr. G's office this morning to get an update on our embryos. The first thing she told me was that we had picked up an extra fertilized embryo. So we now have a total of 9 embryos that are growing at various cell stages. The embryologist will not look at them again until tomorrow before our transfer. Please pray that we have two, excellent quality blasts tomorrow and that we have a few that are able to be frozen for future use as well. I will have an acupuncture appointment tomorrow before the transfer. I'm hoping that the treatment will help me to relax and will prepare my uterus to receive the embryos.

Thanks again for all the love, support and comments! I'll update again tomorrow after our transfer!