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.  

Update!

It feels a little like we are on a VERY slow boat to China right now.  Although we have moved forward with the egg donation process we still have a lot to do and wait for.

It's quite the process.  Lots of legalities when trying to have or make a baby the totally unconventional way.  So this is where we stand...

1.  Picked an egg donor

2. Reached out to the donor agency and selected our donor aka baby momma

3. Selected a lawyer... Oh yes custody!  We wouldn't want baby momma coming and chasing down her DNA after I've carried and birthed the child.  So thus far we have only signed our contract agreement with the donor agency and agreed upon a final amount that we will owe 

4.  Paid the initial fee to the donor agency of $$$$.... It's all worth it right???

5. Baby momma had her psych evaluation!!! Yay she is normal.  Check that one off the list!!

6.  Matt and Jenn visit the shrink in Naperville!  Yes we too have to have a psych evaluation to ensure we are mentally ok. Matt and I about died when we heard that we had to go.  Seriously lady if 5 miscarriages one at 5.5 months and almost 3 years of trying to have a kid haven't put us in the loony bin than I think we are ok.  We've done part one of our visit and have another appointment next week. Thank you modern medicine for "billing" for two appointments because we "ran out of time to answer all of the questions".  So thus far we think we've passed... Next week will really be the test

7.  Now we wait... Baby momma should be expecting her period, I mean Aunt Flo, next week.  Once she gets her period, on the 3rd day of her period she will go to a local clinic close to her hometown and get blood work and an ultrasound

If all of that is good... Next step is for her to come to Chicago to meet with Dr. Miller and get more testing done.  So many steps to ensure she is a good match.  Thus far it looks like we will be starting ivf injections the end of July and then implanting in August with hopefully two really good embryos.  Twins wouldn't be so bad right ?

Baby Momma, pregnancy, and a miscarriage

As always life is such a wild ride for Matt and I.  Over the past 3 weeks Matt and I decided to proceed with a donor egg, found out we were naturally pregnant, miscarried, and decided to again proceed with a donor egg.

As always I try to find the positive side of my miscarriages.  For miscarriage #5 I can say it confirmed and gave me more peace of mind to proceed with the donor egg process.  Although I try to not get my hopes up every time I have a pregnancy ( even if it is just for a few weeks) I always pray that it is going to be the one.  Well not this one, so now we are moving ahead with a donor.

Let me fill ya'll in.  Matt and I had a great vacation in Nashville (see pictures below).  We took a road trip which allowed for 14 hours in the car and a few days to sit and talk, laugh, enjoy life, and decide on our next step in trying to create a family.  We decided to proceed with the donor process.  Prior to our vacation I had contacted some local agencies and searched through the potential donors. 

We decided once we returned home to go through the list again and see if we were interested in anyone.  On a side note I had missed my period BUT after the 6+ pregnancy tests I had taken that were all negative, I felt comfortable chalking a missed period up to stress ( my body tends to do this sometimes) and not a pregnancy and move forward with a donor.

When we returned home after searching through 5 different agencies we decided on our baby momma ( we've decided to call her that to protect her identity) through an agency called graceful conception.   I reached out to see if she was still available and she was.  One day later I took one more pregnancy test just to make sure it was just stress and BAM that dang thing was positive....

So now we had agreed to have a baby momma and I was pregnant ( like 5.5 weeks pregnant)  Maybe a little cruel but I think this is gods sense of humor. He is laughing with us as to just how crazy this is.  Always when I plan something a whole new path arises... Hence the name of my blog.  Only to be fair I notified the donor agency and told them I was pregnant but had a high chance of miscarriage as in the past I miscarried very early in between 5.5-7 weeks.  

Sure enough as fast as I found out I was pregnant I started to miscarry.  Matt was out of town on business so thankfully my mom came to be with me for the week.  God must have listened because I prayed that it wasn't going to be as bad as my previous two natural miscarriages had been in 2012.  Thankfully they were not.  So as soon my doctors office confirmed I was about to miscarry Matt contacted the agency to see if our baby momma was still available.  Thankfully she was ( although a few other couples were interested in her) and we were able to commit to her.

So stay tuned for a whole new ride... Baby momma and the donor egg.  I'm new to this so its going to be quite an adventure of emotions, questions, but most important another opportunity to bring a baby or babies home!

April Fools

Last year April fools ( April 1, 2014) was supposed to ( or at least close to it) bring me so much joy.  That was my official due date with Collin.... Except I obviously never got there.  Days like tomorrow are always hard.  It's a milestone I look at that I will never cross.  What could have been my babies first birthday now is just a silly day where plenty of people play dirty little tricks on each other and has no meaning to me other than another sad day in the books.

Sometimes I think I have too many sad days... Certain days in my life are filled  with memories of miscarriage, heartache, and a whole lot of pain.  One day I know I will be beyond blessed with a beautiful family but until then I will live through my hard days hoping that one day they will begin to turn into better days.  

 We are still working on and thinking on the idea of whether we pursue an egg donor, continue with ivf as we have been, or try naturally again.  I know that no matter what Matt and I decide we won't have any regrets if/when it brings us a child but it just is so hard to make sure we are making the right decision. 

I'm not sure there is a right decision, just a decision to follow my heart.  Matt and I are going to be going on a road trip.  We haven't spent a whole lot of time together talking about our next plan because quite frankly Matt has been just way too busy.  I'm hoping that a nice 10+ hours in the car will allow us to talk and discuss our feelings and maybe make a decision.