The cutest smudge ever

Today was our ultrasound and the first time we got to peek in on Baby Kays! Yes, baby, as in singular, one. While I am sure we could have handled twins, I am happy that we can focus all our attention on one baby. A spoiled one it will be!

Our doctor said everything looked great and we even got to see the heartbeat! Very amazing, considering the baby is the size of a pea! The heartbeat isn't loud enough to hear yet on an ultrasound - have to wait until 12 weeks for that, but it is alive and kicking and we couldn't be happier!

We go back in 2 weeks just to check everything out one more time and then we will be released to my regular OBGYN.

I truly cannot believe how in love I can already be with something that looks like a tadpole :) but it was most definitely the cutest, smartest smudge I have ever seen!!!

Thank you for all your love and support over the past 2 weeks, keep us in your prayers, our journey is nowhere near over - Love you all,

Week 5 :)

Hello all,

Many of you have been asking how I've been feeling so I thought I would just send out a general update. We are currently in week 5 (according to my calculations) and I'm feeling OK. I am definitely tired, but it's the first week of school so everyone is tired! Yesterday I started coming down with a cold and I definitely am not feeling well because of that. The doctor said I could take zyrtec, benadryl, mucinex, tylenol etc. but I really don't want to take anything just yet. So for the first time in my life we'll see if my body can beat this cold by itself! :) Glad to have a 3 day weekend to take it easy -

Other than that, Chris and I are both doing well. He is being crazy overprotective, which for the time being, is very cute. He is making me eat salmon (omega -3s make smart babies, ya know) and listen to classical music (see the last comment). He is limiting my intake of caffeine and sugar, but I have to say, he is doing the same for himself so I won't complain :)

We are very anxious for our ultrasound next Wednesday Sept. 5 in the afternoon. We cannot wait to see our baby (or tadpole as it is right now) and make sure he/she is growing as expected. We will certainly update you all after next week's appointment.

Thanks for keeping us in your prayers, I can't believe we still have 35 weeks to go!! :) I am ready to enjoy every minute -

The Happiest Day

By now many of you know that Chris and I are pregnant! Our 4th donor insemination attempt was successful! Here are the details:

Two weeks ago, Monday, was our insemination. On Friday we decided to go to Columbus, spur of the moment, to have one last hurrah before school started and to celebrate my birthday. I took a test with us to take on Saturday morning. We had a great dinner and went to bed. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to use the restroom and took a test. It has always been my belief that if you don't see a positive result right away, it isn't positive, I never wait the 3 minutes you are supposed to. I also, however, never throw a test out for a few hours. So the test wasn't positive and I put it on the sink. At 7:30 I woke up again to use the restroom and when I went in the bathroom, the test was positive. I, of course, freaked out and yelled for Chris to get in the bathroom. Now, if you are as intimate with pregnancy tests as I am, you would know that the directions always say you can't read the results after like 10 minutes. So, I told Chris we had to go buy another test. We got dressed, and walked 6 blocks to a CVS but it was closed! I was ready to throw a rock through the window, but Chris talked me out of it. We walked back to our hotel and I remembered that there was a little convenient store in it. We went there and there was ONE box of tests left! Of course it cost like 10 times what a normal box would cost, but I couldn't have cared less. I, of course, told the clerk our whole story and she told us to come back down and tell her the results.

So we went up to the room and I had Chris start the timer when we took this test, but it turned positive right away! After I cried, I called the clerk and she was screaming, "I knew it!" She also told me it's a boy :) Chris says she apparently moonlights as a psychic. We drove home from Columbus in a daze. We shared the news with our family, and made an appointment to get a blood test Monday.

Sunday was a very difficult day. I felt excited, unbelievably scared, and everything in between. Chris tended to just hover on the unbelievably scared side (shocker, I know). After everything that happened the last time we had a positive test, we just really wanted that blood test level.

Monday morning (the first day of school!) I had the blood test and we got the results very quickly. A nurse called and said she had good news! I immediately started hyperventilating. My levels were 152, last time they were 86 and they like them to be over 100. With this level they do not want me to come back for a second blood test. Instead, we will do an internal ultrasound in 2 weeks to find out if there are one or two babies (levels point to one, so take a sigh of relief!). I called Chris and told him we were good. I didn't hear anything and said, "are you there?" He was crying and couldn't talk. First time he cried since we found out so it was a really cool moment.

I don't have an official due date, but according to the internet I'll be due end of April/beginning of May. We truly cannot say thank you enough for the amount of prayers, support, and love we have received. We still have a long journey ahead of us before our dreams are truly realized, but I can't spend everyday worrying so I'm celebrating every moment I can!

I'm feeling fine... had some cramping which the doctor explained is normal. I told the nurse I wasn't feeling any symptoms yet and she told me not to complain! :) I'm definitely not complaining, but would love to feel different so I know everything's ok.

We will, of course, keep you updated. Please keep us in prayers, we certainly aren't out of the woods yet!

New Info

Good morning! Yesterday we had our appointment with our doctor to discuss what to do if our 4th attempt is unsuccessful. He reiterated that he sees no evidence that anything is wrong with me. He said we need to give IUI 6 chances to really get the full benefit. He did say that we could use injectable drugs, similar to IVF drugs, to increase the quality of our eggs even more. The downside is that using only injectables raises your twin rate to 25% and triplets to 2-3%. Our doctor will always say that multiples isn't ideal just because of the increased risk of danger to mom and babies. We decided on a compromise where I will still be on the oral medication I have been using but also do a smaller amount of injectables. He actually gave us the injectables for free so we won't even have to pay anything extra.

It's too late to do the injectables with this 4th round, so we will continue as normal this month. I have an ultrasound Friday and will then find out when the insemination will be.

In the meantime, we are certainly not giving up on exploring other options. If this doesn't work after 6 times, I really want to have a plan in place for what we will do next. We have a conference call on Friday with an adoption counselor to ask her questions. I am also in the process of reaching out to the contacts so many of you gave me on FB. We are just trying to get all the facts so we can make the best decision for us!

Thank you for all your support - last night I told Chris that I always feel like I'm letting people down every month when we aren't pregnant. He said I can't worry about what other people think, and I explained that I'm not worried what others think, I just hate that so many of our loved ones are supporting us, praying for us, hoping for us, and every month we have to bring them bad news - because MY body can't get it together. He said he totally understood feeling that. It's hard to always be calling your family and telling them it didn't work. We cannot wait for the day when we can call you and let you know that our dream has finally come true!!

Round 4

Happy Friday everyone! On Tuesday we found out that our third attempt was unsuccessful. I honestly didn't even cry this time. I think that pregnancy seems so impossible to me that I honestly don't even expect it to work anymore. I know that might sound like a terrible thing to say, and obviously we haven't completely given up hope because we are trying one last time. It's just that it's easier when you don't let your heart believe that it can really work.

My doctor says it takes 3-4 times, so we are trying one more time. However, we do have an appointment to talk to him next week about what to do if the 4th time is unsuccessful as well. We think he will still leave IVF on the table as an option and then there is also adoption. We really aren't sure what direction we will go in. Both are expensive and uncertain and scary. We are trying to gather as much information about all our options right now so that we can make the best decision possible for our family.

Thank you to all of you who have supported us and reached out. I posted on FB, but will reiterate that we are looking for any info on adoption that you might offer. I talked to a friend today and learned so much just from a 20 minute conversation!

Please keep my whole family in your prayers - it's amazing how infertility touches everyone. Our parents are sad that they haven't had the chance for grandchildren yet - and are obviously sad that we are hurting. My brother won't get the chance to be an uncle - at the end of the day, we have to just keep telling ourselves that we will have a child someday, although the journey to that child might be uncertain right now.

We will keep you updated.

HSG

Sorry I haven't updated since the test on Friday. We had our HSG test - they put dye in my fallopian tubes, took an xray and checked for any blockages. Fortunately, everything was normal! No blockages, and my doctor said sometimes just flushing the tubes with the dye can help, even if there are no blocks. Saturday morning we had an ultrasound and there were lots of good, big eggs. Everything looked good so we had our insemination this afternoon! Dr. A did it and was very funny usual. I told him I wished I had taken a pic of the HSG x-ray because it was very cool and he said, "yes, you have a fascinating uterus." Hilarious. Anyway, we will know 2 weeks from today if the third time really is a charm. Keep the prayers coming! I'm headed to Dallas next week and Chris to San Diego so that should take our  mind off things for awhile :) We will update in 2 weeks!

Round 3

Hello all, sorry I wasn't able to update until today. So we found out last Tuesday that Round 2 was unsuccessful. Tuesday was a tough day for us. It costs us $1000 for each round, so not only were we hoping that our emotional journey would be over, but our financial one too. It's difficult to plan for the future when we have no idea how long this will take.

At my last appointment, Dr. Awadalla mentioned a procedure to see if my Fallopian tubes are blocked. He said he would wait until we had tried our current process 3 times before doing the test. Some people have asked why the test wasn't done sooner. You can't test all people for all things. There is no reason to believe that my tubes are blocked, which is why I haven't had the test. Even if my tubes are blocked, that in no way would have affected our IVF cycle. The test is called a Hysterosalpingogram or HSG. During the procedure, a dye will be injected into my ovaries and then an x-ray will be taken to see if the dye is able to flow through the tubes correctly. We will have the results of the test immediately. The next day I am scheduled for my normal ultrasound to check on my eggs.

I'm not sure what will happen if my tubes are blocked, it depends on many factors, so I can't really say for sure what the next step would be, we will have to wait until Friday.

Chris and I have been talking about adoption a lot lately. We both really feel its not for us. I think adopting a child is an amazing thing for a couple to do, but we just don't feel its right for us. I was talking to one of my good friends about it and she said, "you know this doesn't like something you want to do, you haven't said anything positive about in 20 minutes!" Obviously, our feelings may change about this in the future, but for now, we are committed to finding ways for me to carry our child.

I'll update again on Friday after the procedure. It's a simple thing - I can drive myself there and home, no big deal. Thanks for the prayers -