Happy Valentine's Day

Yes it is the day of love..... all things hearts and flowers and red......

Speaking of RED- I just started my period! Yes I did- right in the middle of my stimulation. If you remember from this post, I did this last time I was stimming. I just called my favorite nurse Bethie- and she assured me not to worry. I go get checked tomorrow morning at the clinic- and we will assess then. She said worse case scenario is that we retrieve the eggs and fertilize them, then freeze all of them and do a transfer under a highly controlled cryo cycle. Ummmm that's not exactly what I want to do, but I will do it if it means not losing anymore of my babies.

Lord- please make this right and make it stop bleeding. This is not the time. And the weird thing about it all is the fact that it TOTALLY goes against everything we know about hormones. IE I am injecting all these drugs which increase my estrogen level to superphysiological levels, which in theory means you should never have a period- because you start when you have the big drop in estrogen and progesterone each cycle. So why someone tell me does MY BODY DO THIS????? It is so jacked up that seriously its no wonder I am never getting pregnant!!

I am trying to just keep the faith and know that it can all still work out. There is about 8 days before my retrieval and another 5 days before the transfer- so trying to chill...... take a deep breath in ...... and trust Him!

Well I am still at work and now I have to go inject my 5 shots before my class begins in 1/2 hour at 5:30pm. Yes I have to teach ALL DAY on Valentine's Day and don't even get to see my precious Sweetness. But I do love you boo...... more than you'll ever know. You are the reason I stay sane in all of this- you are my calm in the storm- my most precious gift!!! Your wife I will forever be. You truly are the love of my life!

The stimulation is underway......

Yes the stimulation is underway, tonight will be night 3 of stimming. I am taking 5 shots a night- and boy are my ovaries letting me know they are there! So here we go..... this is the last time I can put my body through this. But we feel really hopeful and I am trying desperately to hold onto that little bit of hope that is rising again.

I have not heard anything about the job- and I have another possibility in the works also- really praying the Lord is moving me on to bigger and better things!

Please pray I can make it through this next week of stimulation- which is typically harder on me than most women due to many reasons particularly my neck injury. The hormones exacerbate my injury and my pain meds can not get me out of pain when on these high levels of hormones. So that is what I am dealing with- and I am VERY willing to do this one more time if it meant I could give my Sweetness a child, and make us a family.

I will keep you updated after my follicle scan on Tuesday morning.

IVF #5 is underway......

So this morning we awoke to 3 inches of snow here!!!! That was a huge surprise! Needless to say it put a bit of a kink in the morning commute to the clinic for Baseline Day- but nonetheless we got there. Blood work and an Ultrasound later- we were in the office signing paper work and such.

So then when I called the phone tree tonight to see how much medication to inject tonight, they actually want me to start stimming tomorrow night. I will be cycling on Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday to accommodate my teaching schedule. So they don't want me to stim for over 4 days before being monitored.

Also something great happened today, I have a real good possibility of getting a job locally that I have been applying for and praying about. They actually called a reference today and are verifying my credentials, so I am soooo hopeful, and needing a change in my daily venue (if ya know what I mean). I would appreciate my girls praying for me in regards to all this!

Overall a pretty great day, Sweetness and I are feeling soooo hopeful and I am trying to rally the hopes once again in the hopes our dreams can come true!

Will update again later!! Thanks for coming on this journey with us again!

2 days until it all begins.......

Well everything is chugging along as it should. We go to the RE on Thursday morning to get started. Its baseline day for IVF #3 !!! Hopefully my ovaries are REALLY quiet being on all this Lu.pron. I mean it has made me soooooo mean this time- I am so agitated sometimes I even want to get away from myself- weird I know but its how i feel sometimes. I will be so glad to stop taking this stuff.

And the state law in Virginia says that you need an STD panel on both husband and wife once a year- but NO NOT MY CLINIC- they want it every 6 months!!!! Do they realize how much this junk costs???? I mean we already have all negatives from July '10 but no.......we have to get it again. So I told the nurse how much it costs and she told me we could go to the health department and they will do it for FREE!!! Really???? Ive never been to the health department, but Sweetness and I are going there Thursday morning before we head to the clinic for baseline day. the tests take 2 weeks to get back but as long as we have them to the clinic before the transfer we are good.

And one last thing, I called my acupuncturist to set up my appts for next week while stimming. She was so condescending and rude that I can not afford to come as much as she wants me to (at $85 a pop), I called her back and told her that she was creating stress for me in this situation and that I feel like I am going to decline any further treatment. She was apologetic but I still just feel like it is a waste of money that I really don't have. I am trusting the Lord for the outcome of this IVF, not whether I've had acupuncture or not.

Speaking of stress......my job is so stressful that I really can not hardly wait to be off the whole month of March. My job is making me take FMLA to be off, so my doc is filling out the paperwork and I can pick it up on Friday- hopefully my work will approve it. I just really can not work for this place any longer- the lady that is over me is so nasty and rude. She literally has me in tears most days. So I have some leads on new opportunities, please pray that something will come through and I can get out of this very unhealthy environment.

Other than that, Sweetness is healing, and improving everyday from the fall 3 weeks ago, its still a work in progress but we appreciate all the prayers! I will update as soon as we find out on Thursday what our real plan of action is for this our final attempt at a family through IVF!!!! thanks again for all the love and support- we love you all!!!

An update!!

Yes well as the picture says, my birthday season is here (or should say has gone). My birthday was this past Saturday and it was really a nice day. Sweetness and Mom took me out to a very nice restaurant and had some real upscale dining, and really enjoyed the piano player right near us! Awesome place to enjoy a birthday!!! Sweetness gave me some Armani perfume and lotion! Smells divine! Mom took me shopping for several blouses etc. Just a very nice day!

We arrived home and my precious friend Tara had sent me some beautiful pink roses to my house. She is truly one of the kindest, most thoughtful friends I have. She is always thinking about everyone but herself!!! Love you Tara bell!

But thank you to all my friends who sent cards and little gifts to make me feel loved!!!

In other news, life has been pretty tough lately. Sweetness slipped and fell on the ice outside his office and hit his head, among other things he cracked up. We were at the hospital and he was diagnosed with a severe concussion. It has been a rough past week since all this occurred. Please keep him in your prayers that he would not have lasting effects from this, because this is not his first or even second concussion.

In other news, my job has been stressing me until I am physically ill. I can no longer take the issues and unethical behavior I feel like I am subjected to, so today I was prepared to resign, and Sweetness and I would face this head on. Well...... my boss agreed that instead of that option for me to finish teaching this mod (end Feb. 24) and take the next one off (of course without pay, but off nonetheless). So I am feeling the relaxation coming over my oh-so-stressed-out mind. I still have my job if I want to come back in April, but I have the chance to look for other things and most importantly focus on my family.

Speaking of family.....lets talk about IVF. Our desire for a family is really so great that sometimes it can consume you. But I am trying to do a lot of things different this time, ie- acupuncture, no caffeine, pineapple, meditation and a 5-day transfer. Of course reducing the extreme stress I am under is going to help. But I am excited to tell you that in ONE WEEK from today we have our baseline visit. We will begin stimulation that day, and hopefully the embryos will be put back into me on or about Feb. 28th!!!

We are really hoping this is our time and praying praying and more praying!!

This has gotten to be a very long post, so not to bore you any longer, I will wrap it up!! Thank you again for all the support and encouragement! I will be much better about updating here as we proceed!!!

Still employed

Thank you ladies for all the prayers and support this last week as I had one of the most stressful in my life. As of now, I am still employed but I will be "written-up". This really peeves me because I did nothing wrong!!! And when they do give me the form to sign I WILL be writing my side of the story there- I will not be blankly signing a paper admitting guilt when they will not even hear me out.

But needless to say I am actively looking for another job because I can not work for these people. But I need income so I am not quitting. And of course the stress is not healthy for me right now either.

But tomorrow I will begin a new semester at school and a whole new group of students. Hopefully it will be a nice 5 weeks section. And on Tuesday I will go back to my 2 nd acupuncture appointment. I am also doing a special IVF/IUI mediatation series of DVDs. They are great and I highly recommend them for anyone going through IVF. I will blog about them next time with a picture of them and how to order them.

Hope you all have a nice week and will update again soon!!!

Still hangin in.....

To say the last two days of this week have been tough is an understatement. But suffice it to say I am being reprimanded at work for something I did not do, and it is creating a lot of stress. I don't think I will loss my job over this, but I might. I am trying to go back to my faith that has never let me down before- and TRUST that He knows what is happening. He will see me through, and Sweetness and I are together forever and that's all that matters.

I would appreciate your prayers and I will update more when I can. If you are real interested in whats happening, you can private message me and I will tell you..... I just don't want SOME things to be out in the world's cyber space!!! (If you can believe that)

I have taken 2 BCPs, and will begin stimming on Feb, 10th!!! So excited!! Trying to build that hope back up one more time.......

Thanks for your support....... I know you ladies all understand who have gone through multiple IVFs.