Still Waiting...

We hit a bit of a road bump with our donor.  We are still waiting for her to get the initial blood work drawn to ensure hormonally she is a good candidate.  She was supposed to have gotten this done about a month ago but due to some miscommunication between our doctor and donor this has been delayed.

I got a call from my nurse the beginning of June to let me know that the donor had started her birth control pack and never had the blood work drawn.  Needless to say I was not happy.  Ok I'll admit it, I really lost it.  Uncontrollable sobbing lost it.  Once again I realized how hard fertility is and no road or path is really a quick fix to my balanced translocation problem.  I was mad at her, mad at the agency, and mad at my doctors office.  

How could one stupid step be so hard.... "Call the doctors office when you get your period so you can get the blood work drawn."  All I could think of was if she cannot handle this than how is she going to handle directions of injecting herself full of medicine.  

After I got the message from the nurse regarding the situation it was too late in the day to call back.  Thank god I had a night to get a grip onf myself because I was ready to fire the donor.  After a few conversations with the nurse and our agency I realized truthfully what had happened.  She had gotten her period but it was just really light. The nurse explained to me that the birth control she currently takes barely gives her a period. ( phew because I also freaked out and thought that she didn't even get a period a huge red flag in the infertile world of a hormonally bad candidate)  She had in fact called to let them know but Instead of the clinic recognizing that this was her "normal" period for her they told her to wait until she had a full flowing period.  Instead of her asking any additional questions she waited and never got anything more so she went ahead and started her next birth control pack without calling Dr. Millers office.  

I'm still mad about it but realize that I would rather have the miscommunication in the beginning rather than later when we are dealing with precise directions and follow-up.  

So anyways Dr. Miller shortened her birth control and she finished her last pill on June 24th.  We are now just waiting for her to get her light period and get the blood drawn.  So hopefully in the next couple of days we will get another green light that she can come in to see Dr. Miller and get his stamp of approval with the rest of the genetic testing and blood work.  

So in the mean time Matt and I have been continuing to enjoy life and a break from all of the ivf medication.   Matt had a golf outing with his buddies at our old Alma Mater Michigan State, I had a mother/daughter/sister shopping weekend in Chicago, spent a long weekend with my old college besties in Austin Texas, and am looking forward to spending time in a little bit with family "home" in Muskegon and at our family cottage in Alpena.  

Summer is breezing by but hopefully we will continue to enjoy the last few weeks ( month and a half) until we get this baby making show on the road.  

Trying new things

I promised myself that this upcoming round of ivf using a donor egg I would be willing to try anything to help increase my chances.  Well either I've lost my mind or I am just really desperate for a child I decided to start doing accupuncture.  Yep you read that correctly.  

Where you willingly lay on a table and have someone stick needles in your body.  Crazy right!  Although it's not going to fix my genetic condition I figured it is not going to hurt!  So I started 3 weeks ago.  I had my 3rd session today and it's going well.  Let me start off with my first time...

I go to this cute little Chinese lady "jing". She has been doing this for more than 25 years.  I had my first appointment a few weeks ago and she read my pulses and had me hold some metal stick thing to measure my energy balance and pulses.  After she finished she was able to show me a graph on the computer about how healthy and balanced I was...  Needless to say according to her readings I'm not and I am very unhealthy.  She's going to fix me though.   Now I almost started laughing after she told me this ( hello I am a nurse and practice western medicine and usually think this eastern Chinese medicine is a little crazy but again, I reminded myself to be open minded).  I held my composure and listened to what she had to say and then followed her into an exam room.

She had me change into a gown and then came back in.  The accupuncture session started with her massaging my head, scalp, ears, arms, and legs.  She then stuck about 10 needles in total on my head, stomach, wrists, and feet.  She turned a heat lamp on my stomach turned the lights off and left me to Lay there.

Again I started laughing to myself... Seriously this is nuts.  I've lost my mind.  I just willingly let a complete stranger stick 10 needles in me and leave them in and walk away.  All I could think about was how stupid this was.  I didn't feel anything.  And then all of a sudden things started to change.  I felt it.  This overwhelming tingling numbing sensation.  It felt as if my legs were pulsing and I started to panic.  Oh lord did she paralyze me, is this normal, what is this?  I wiggled my toes, yep they moved, wiggled my legs, yes they moved. Oh thank heavens I was fine so I laid there longer.  Thankfully jing came to check on me and I asked if this was normal and ok.  She told me this was good, it was the energy I was feeling.  

So I laid there for a while longer, numb, still in shock that such tiny needles could create such an intense feeling.  Eventually she came in and pulled them out and as quickly as the feeling came on it just as quickly ended.  So needless so say after my first time I was convinced that maybe this isn't so nuts after all.  Hence why I now have gone 3 times.

Each time she has placed more needles in different spots and each time the same overwhelming tingling body numbing feeling sensation comes back.  It really is nuts.  A sensation I've never felt before.  She's focusing on points or meridians ( which is the special lingo she uses) to help lower my stress and anxiety and help with circulation to my fertility organs.  Sometimes I feel like I'm a ball of nerves with all of this in vitro stuff. I am not sure if I feel different quite yet, too hard to tell but I have been sleeping better.

Not much else has changed.  We are just waiting to get clearance and the go ahead that our baby momma is good to go.  So keep waiting with us, it's the hardest and worst part about all of this!

Just in case you wondered how big the needle is.