Happy Anniversary Christopher Patrick!

Four years ago today I married my best friend. God could not have picked out a more perfect person to hold my hand through this journey of life! We had such big plans and dreams when we got married and we have seen several of those plans come to fruition. Even though one of our biggest dreams has proven to be quite difficult, I am so glad that I have you by my side through this rollercoaster of a journey. Even though we don't know for sure what path God will set before us that will finally lead us to parenthood, I have no doubt that he will answer our prayers and we will be parents one day. You are going to be such a great dad and I can't wait to see you with our future children!

In the nine years that I have known you, I have watched you grow from the fun college student into the wonderful, successful man that you are today. You are my rock and you have always been so supportive of me. I couldn't have made it through all the ups and downs of the last nine years without you. I am so blessed to have you in my life and I am so glad that God picked you to be my husband. :-) We have made so many wonderful memories together and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us! You are the love of my life and I thank God for you everyday.

Happy Anniversary! I can't wait to celebrate many, many more with you!

So far so good

I had my first injection tonight for IVF #3. It was 10 units of Lup.ron and then I also had to start taking the Dexameth.asone tonight as well. I'm hoping that my body tolerates the Lupr.on. I've heard that some people have gotten really bad headaches from it and I'm already prone to migraines. YUCK! Let's hope the migraines don't find me. I've managed to keep them away for a good while now. I'm hoping that the acupuncture will also help to keep the headaches away. I start back with my first acupuncture appt on Wednesday. YAY!

That's about all I have for now. Thanks again for all your continued support and prayers! I hope everyone has a great week!

An Infertile Couple's Kitchen

Have any of you ever wondered what an infertile couple's kitchen looks like??? Ladies and gentlemen take a look below. This is what an infertile couple's kitchen looks like (at least this is what our's looks like thanks to IVF #3).
We have about 12 different types of medicine all related to this IVF cycle in one way or another, one sharps container, a bag of bandaids, several bags of alcohol wipes and a PLETHORA of syringes and needles! YIKES! Some of these needles are pretty scary looking. These are for the dreaded intramuscular shots that my loving husband will have the pleasure of inserting into my backside everyday. YIPPEE! I just cannot wait for those shots to begin. (yes, this is sarcasm)

Since this isn't our first time around the IVF block I have to admit that overall the shots really aren't all that bad. BUT, I lucked out with my last two cycles and didn't have to endure any intramuscular shots. I am a little nervous about those. I keep telling myself No Pain No Gain. Well, from the looks of some of those needles there will be plenty of pain so I just hope there's something to gain at the end of this cycle as well! :-)

Thanks so much for all the comments, encouraging words and prayers you've been leaving on my blog! All of you help to make this journey so much easier!

Perfect Gift from the BEST BFF Ever!!

I had to write a new post about this topic because it is so awesome that it deserves a post all to its own. Here's a little background. Ever since I was little, I have had this one little lovey that I absolutely cherished. I carried him everywhere and slept with him every night. He was my companion and I even snuck him to camp with me as a child. He went to college with me and yes, I STILL sleep with him! I know, I know, I'm 29 and married. I don't care, though! He is a Humpty Dumpty doll, or at least that's what he used to be. Over the last 29 years he has become pretty ragged looking and has undergone many cosmetic makeovers from my grandma and mom. I don't know why but I named him Bloop Bloop or Bloopy when I was little. He has been called either Bloop Bloop or Bloopy ever since. Chris knows how important this little rag of a doll is to me and if I lose him he always helps me search for him. Chris knows the world would end if I were to ever lose this little lovey of mine.

So, my best friend, Morgan, emailed me last week and said that she had found something for our future Bean and just had to buy it. She asked me if it was ok to go ahead and mail it to me and I said of course. I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of this package. I knew that I was going to love it, but I had no idea just how special it was going to be. The package arrived in the mail today and I had no clue what it was. I anxiously ripped into the pacakge and began to unwrap the most amazing gift ever...a Humpty Dumpty doll for our future little Bean!!!!! She bought our future little Bean their very own Bloop Bloop! Tears rolled down my cheeks as I ran into our bedroom to show Chris what she had sent us. She also included the sweetest note ever that was written to our future Bean. She said in the note that future Bean's mom (ME!) had experienced a lot of love and comfort from her Bloop Bloop and that here was a Bloop Bloop for them to love and be comforted by. How sweet is that!? Of course more tears ensued as I read the sweet note. I don't think Chris could understand me as I read it aloud to him because the tears were just flowing. These were most definitely tears of joy, though. :-)

I couldn't ask for a more perfect gift!!! Morgan, you are truly the BEST BFF EVER!!!

Here's a picture of future Bean's Bloop Bloop!

IVF #3

We had a meeting with our nurse, Susan yesterday. We signed all the paperwork, discussed the meds and injections instructions and received our official schedule our our IVF cycle. She actually took the time to explain the paperwork to us (not that we didn't already understand it, but still it's nice that they're so thorough). This cyle will be somewhat different from our last two cycles. I am still taking the BCPs and will stop taking them next Wednesday. On Monday, I will begin taking one Lup.ron injection each night and will also begin a low dose steroid that I take by mouth. I have never been on Lup.ron before so if any of you ladies that have taken it have any advice or words of wisdom please let me know. :-) My first monitoring appt. will be on Feb. 4th. They will take blood and scan my uterus and ovaries that morning to make sure that everything is nice and suppressed. If that is the case then I will start the follicle stimulating hormone injections on Feb. 6th. I will be taking 150 IUs of Follist.im in the morning and then also an injection of Menopu.r in the evening. I have never taken Menopu.r so again, any advice would be welcomed!

Our egg retrieval will be sometime the week of Feb. 15-19th. Unfortunately, Dr. H does not allow the spouses to be in the procedure room for the egg retrieval but Chris will get to be with me in the recovery room before and after. I'll be under anesthesia during the retrieval anyway so I won't realize that he's not there. :-) I will have an actual anesthesiologist from the hospital next door to our clinic come over to administer the "cocktail" to me that morning. Our last clinic did not use anesthesiologists for some reason.

We have about two weeks now until full craziness ensues with all the injections and monitoring appointments. Once you get to that point the time really seems to fly by. I should be receiving all the meds at our house sometime this week or on Saturday. I sure hope they get here in time!

Wish us luck! IVF take 3 has begun!!

Have I mentioned I LOVE our new doctor???

Yesterday's procedure went really well. It was horribly uncomfortable, but thankfully it only lasted about 5 minutes. Dr. H said that my uterus looked great and my ultrasound showed that my ovaries are doing exactly what they need to at this point in my cycle. They explained every little step to me yesterday and made sure that I was comfortable and relaxed. I am such a detail person so this was much appreciated! Afterwards, I met with Dr. H in his office to discuss everything and to come up with a tentative schedule for this cycle. I also got to meet our nurse for this cycle. She was SO nice! She likes to correspond through email alot which thrilled me. I also had the pleasure of meeting another nurse, Denise. She is the sister-in-law of our pastor's wife, Laura. What a small world! I found out from Laura on Sunday that her SIL worked there, so Laura contacted her and let her know that I was coming in yesterday. Dr. H thought it was cool that I had a connection there. He would have assigned her as our nurse, but he said that she is the nurse for patients while they're waiting to be assigned to one of the other nurses.

We have our next appt. with our nurse this coming Monday so that we can go over all the paperwork, sign it and order our meds. My next appt. with Dr. H will be on Feb. 4th to scan my ovaries and make sure that they are nice and quiet.

I can't believe that we are almost half way through January! February is going to be here before we know it!

A New Year Means New Beginnings

Well, we had our consultation with Dr. H this morning and the verdict is...we LOVE him!!! He was so nice and relaxed with us. He made us feel so comfortable and we didn't feel rushed at all. He made it seem like he had all the time in the world for us this morning. He was so thorough and truthful with us. He went over our last two failed IVF cycles in detail, which was a breath of fresh air. Our other doctor NEVER discussed many details with us and when we would ask questions we would get very vague answers.

Bottom line is that we need to improve the quality of our embryos. Dr. H feels like we have a decent chance of improving the quality of our embryos by using his embryology lab. We have heard nothing but rave reviews of his lab and their SART scores are really good. Dr. H did tell us that because of the severity of our infertility, our prognosis isn't great but it's not terrible either. He still feels like we have a good shot of getting pregnant through IVF.

After meeting with him for about an hour this morning, we decided to move foward with his clinic. We are going to hold off on the FET for now due to the poor quality of those embryos. Instead, we will immediately start a fresh cycle with Dr. H. He wrote me a prescription for BCPs and I will start those tonight. On Tuesday I will go in for a hystero.scopy to check my uterus. On Tuesday I will also be given the time line for this cycle and we will be assigned our own nurse that will be our contact person throughout this cycle. How awesome is that? No more rude or incompetent nurses!

Chris and I are so grateful for this opportunity and we are really excited to move forward with him! It always amazes me to see the ways that God works in our lives. We both really feel like this new clinic is where we're supposed to be. We're not going into this cycle with any expectations, but we'll be hoping for the best. Thank you for all of your support, comments and prayers! Keep them coming!!

P.S. To those of you here in Houston who commented and asked if Dr. H is the same Dr. H that you have seen...the answer is YES!

Making some changes

So, a new cycle is upon us...FINALLY. It only took about 50 days. I called Dr. G's office this morning full of excitement for our upcoming FET and then the nurse put a major damper on things. I asked her what the protocol would be for the FET. She told me and unfortunately our actual transfer wouldn't even take place until the end of February. Are you freaking kidding me lady??? I just waited 50 flippin' days to start a cycle and now you tell me that our doctor's FET protocol will push us out another two months? Needless to say I was very disappointed. I called Chris and we both agreed that this protocol greatly differed with all the research that we've done on FET. One of the major appeals of a FET is that it's supposed to be a quicker turn-around time than a "fresh" IVF cycle. At this rate I could just do a "fresh" cycle in the amount of time that they're wanting for the frozen one.

A good friend and co-worker has been telling me for the last couple of months about a friend who went through IVF cycles before they ended up with twins. This friend of my friend ended up calling me one day at the end of November and was just raving about her doctor here in Houston and the clinic's reputation and SART scores. I told her that getting a second opinion might not be a bad idea, but at the time I didn't feel comfortable with this. My friend kept urging me to make the appointment but I kept coming up with excuses. Chris and I started talking more about this doctor and about getting a second opinion and we decided that we would move forward with the FET first and then see where that took us. This past weekend and this week I have been thinking a lot about this other doctor. Come to find out, I know a couple of other people who have used him and had success AND my mother-in-law works with a young girl who went through her second IVF cycle with this clinic and just recently gave birth to twins. Hmmm...

After the disappointing phone call this morning, I called Chris and we were brainstorming about our options. Do we just move forward with this FET or do we ask Dr. G if we could just do a "fresh" cycle instead since the time frame would be the same and the success rate would be greater? The answer ended up being neither of these options. After much discussion, we decided to take a leap of faith and make an appointment for a second opinion. I've just really felt lately that this new clinic is where we're supposed to be. I really feel like this is God's way of guiding us towards the paths that He has set out for us. Chris and I also talked about how this doctor would probably want his own blood work run and one of the most important blood work tests has to be run on day 3 of your cycle. I told Chris it would be great if we could get an appointment this week but not to hold his breath.

After we hung up, I called this new clinic and spoke with a very nice woman (the patient coordinator). I explained our situation to her and told her that we would really like to have a consulation with Dr. H to get his take on our fertility issues and what he would or wouldn't do differently with our IVF cycles. She couldn't have been niceer and she said, "Well, Dr. H could see you this Friday at 9:00. Would that work for you?" OMG, are you serious??? YES, we'll take it!! I couldn't believe it! Not only did we get an appt. this week, BUT it's an appt. on day 3 of my cycle. How convenient is that!? So is all of this just a coincidence??? I don't think so. I think that this week God has really nudged us to take this leap of faith and just trust Him. Is this easy to do? Of course not. But, I really feel good about this decision.

Please pray for us and our appointment on Friday. I'm really hoping that we leave with a sense of excitement and that we're ready to make the decision to switch doctors and clinics after our appointment. Who knows if we'll end up still doing the FET or if we'll do a "fresh" cycle first, but I really feel like we should pursue these options with the new doctor and say adios to our current clinic. There are some other things I would like to say to the nurses at our current clinic but I don't think those things are appropriate to post on here. :-)

Stay tuned! The Yerkes are embracing 2010 and making some changes!

**Disclaimer: Please know that Chris and I are so very grateful that we have frozen embryos to work with and we are not taking that blessing for granted. I know that there are so many of you that would love to have frozen embryos to transfer and I hope that this post did not step on any toes. Because of our insurance, we have to make sure that we get as many cycles in before May as possible. After that point, my insurance could very well decide to drop the IVF rider and at that point this IVF journey would be over. Again, I also realize that we are incredibly blessed to have insurance coverage and this is something that we thank God for everyday.

Almost on our way

I called Dr. G's office this morning because I am still waiting for a new cycle. They called in a prescription of Prom.etrium that I will take for 5 days and this should jump start a new cycle. They had to do this last time too so I wasn't surprised that we had to do it again this time. When I called the office I had the pleasure of speaking with the nurse that I am convinced is completely incompetent. She skimmed my chart and made an assumption. Dr. G had given us the option of having an endometrial lining function test with this new cycle, but he said that he really didn't feel that it was necessary. Chris and I chose not to move forward with this test right now because it would push our frozen embryo transfer off at least another month and we really need to get as many cycles in as we can before May. We made this clear to Dr. G at our last appt. in November.

For some reason, the nurse just skimmed my file and assumed that this test needed to be done. After going around in circles with her on the phone this morning I just decided to get off the phone, take a breath and call Chris. He agreed that this was the test that we had decided not to do right now so I called back and explained all this to the nurse. She put me on hold for about 5 minutes while she read through my file again. When she got back on the phone she told me that yes, I was right and that we did not have to do this test. Thank you!! We could have avoided the confusion and frustration if she just would have read my file correctly the first time. Oh well. It's a new year and I'm not going to let her spoil it for me!

So as of now we're in a holding pattern. As soon as a new cycle starts I will begin the birth control pills on day 3 and then go from there. Unfortunately I don't have any other specifics right now. Hopefully I'll get to talk to the other nurse next time. :-)