I want my toes in the water.....

Lovely Weekend: Jay and I had a lovely, lovely weekend. Let's start with Friday. His birthday is June 3 and we found a super, awesome last-minute vacation deal for Myrtle Beach. (we were hoping for a gulf-coast destination, but we'll take this!). We leave on the 2nd and return the 6th. There will be no plans other than my butt. in a chair. on the beach. for 5 days. Awesome news...my Beta will be the 7th; what an awesome birthday present this would be! Saturday, J treated me to a Seafood place in Pigeon Forge and we ended up in North Carolina. It was a rainy day but even the rain doesn't take away from the beauty of the mountains. It was a perfect day. Yesterday, we went to church, had lunch, went grocery shopping, went to the movies, cleaned 2 rooms, went to the book store and still had time to take a nap! It was the longest day ever but was wonderful! I picked up the book Crazy Love. I had heard so much about it; I can't wait to read more tonight.

TTC update: AF showed up last week on Wednesday, so I didn't have to wait too long after my (-) Beta. I ordered my injectables on Tuesday and they weren't supposed to arrive until this week, Wednesday at the latest. Although we wanted to go with an injectable only cycle, with the shots not guaranteed to arrive by cd3 and my RE office not having enough to get me through to this Wednesday (when shots were supposed to arrive) we decided we would go with a mixed cycle this month and if I didn't have at least 3 plump follies, we would skip the IUI this month and go for an injectable only cycle next month. So, I started Femara cd 3-7 and will do 2 Repronex injectables daily in the hip, cd 8-10. My scan is this Friday, 5/21 (I can't believe it's here so soon) and my IUI should be this weekend. Here's the funny thing, my injectables actually got here Friday day, but the Post Office didn't send an email with the Attempted Delivery Notification until like 8:30 Friday evening. I had my RE paged and she said it was too late to start the injectable cycle. Next, I ordered our donor fishies today (my donor was available) and I got 1/2 shipping....that made for a happy surprise, especially after last months ordeal. Femara hasn't made me all twingy and crampy like the first 2 cycles did; so I am kind of nervous about that. Is it working? Do I still have eggs down there? Is this month going to be a flop? Not totally stressing over it but it's there in the back of my mind...I hope it's doing what it's supposed to be doing.

Beach Bound: If going to the beach in 15 days doesn't kick my arse into gear, I don't know what would. Not only am I so motivated to loose whatever is (healthy) humanly possibly to loose in 15 days I am equally as disappointed that I let my weight get this high. I'm discusted. Those 2lbs here and 1lbs there, have added up and I am not happy at all. In addition to the C25K program I am (attempting) to do (it kicks major butt if your are the C part of that equation) I rejoined WW; actually the online program this time. I'm not expecting a huge loss between now and when we set sail to the ocean, but any loss is better than gaining and it will make me feel better knowing I am on the right path. I lost 40ish the first time around on WW (2005), kept it off for over 3 years and since, nothing has worked. I just have to remain motivated...that's where I fail everytime. Not this time.....

Off to catch-up on your blogs. Have a blessed week.

o, guess what?

My little swimmers and my trigger shot arrived today; yay! I get excited over simple things; but these joys help make it through the nerves.

It is an absolutely gorgeous day. In fact, the past 5 days have been nothing but clear skies and sunny. What a beautiful break from the extra long, dreary winter we had. We've taken advantage and worked out in the yard all week. We planted 4 trees, some new flowers [sadly, by 3 hibiscus didn't survive the frigid winter], added a new rocking chair to the front porch, a new flag; all's came together beautifully. this weekend is supposed to be a bit cooler, so we might hit up our drive-in theater; that's such a fun spring/summer time venu to have locally.

Wishing everyone a lovely, spring weekend!

we have a winner!

after my BP lowered and i could again focus on the issue at hand, we hit the Catalog o' spermies head on the last few nights to hopefully find someone close [even if just a little] to the first donor we selected.

the outlook was not good.

so we began our search and we searched for hours.

and hours.

and more long, gruesome hours.

the hair? wrong! the eyes? wrong! medical history? sketchy!

even the ones that i might have made an exception for....no sperm available!

so we walked away. ate dinner. i fussed some more about the unavailability of our first donor.

and we takled it again.

this time.

we sat down. logged in. and boom.

there was donor #perfect.

donor #perfect has perfect everything. hair, eyes, origin, family history, personality, adorable baby picture, awesome medical history, impressive education background, career, etc....

it was love. i was happy.

the situation has been handled.

we found a (probably even more perfect donor than the first) new donor!

insert: a huge sigh of relief.

we have ordered and all is set for Friday delivery.

i then reminded myself that "all things happen for a reason".

& I was furious.

i totally had a melt down yesterday.

let me explain.

as you know, my husband suffers from male factor infertility. so, we get to go through the grueling process of identifying a sperm donor via a selected cryobank all in addition to my PCOS and ensuring I O via lovely meds.

our first cycle last summer we spent hours researching donors. i felt overally paticular and maybe kind of bitchy about our selection process - but my body. our deleima. our decision. it's a huge decision. someone you don't know playing the major role in our having a baby. in a way it's creepy to me - but im more greatful we have this option; so i was cool with it after all. well, we identified our perfect donor. his personal profile so much like Jay. his family medical history, beautiful. his physical traits, mirrored Jay. the price of this donor was within our budget.

having to order our vial this Thursday for overnight delivery, i hopped online yesterday to order and if his price did not read $560. what? how in the heck could a donor increase $340 in 8 months?

so i called.

i was told that the candidate was now placed within the "Options ID" category, which allows the "offspring" to contact the donor at the age of 18. So, they charge $340 for something they allow. they didn't bother to check with the person purchasing if they wanted that option, which in our case, we don't. they didn't notify those who had purchased this donor of a price increase nor would they honor the price w/o this crazy option.

my BP rose 50 notches.

he was perfect. and not that we can't get this donor but our budget is our budget and i can't spend $800 on a tiny vial. this journey is already expensive.

so, here we were 3 days before our delivery - left searching for yet another.

*sigh.

i just realized something.

that we have been married for nine years.
nine years
and still don't have babies.
i am so thankful we finally found an RE that we love and are on our 2nd journey to fight this madness to have a precious bundle of cuteness.

thinking of the years that have passed - i am kind of upset that we didn't pursue treatments in 2005 after we found out hubby had no fishies. i haven't told many people this, but Jay wanted to wait to test again, due the finality of the results. he is a man; he is supposed to bear children - these were his thoughts. then we found out about the exploratory retrieval surgeries that could be done; and he just waited. and waited. and waited to give me an answer. finally, after 3 years - he said no. i was never upset at him. never. just the amount of time that had passed. we have lost so much time. i am so thankful we are back to this point.

everything is going good. we are waiting for my cycle to start, which i hope isn't until the end of next week - just to make sure Metformin is back in the game. i'm over the tummy aches, thankfully.

i found out that my RE can store the donor sperm, but it is $400/month. so, that isn't a cost savings. we are still up in the air about our decision to stay with the same donor or choose from the lab in VA; is $90 in savings worth changing our minds on a donor we were really, really happy with?

we've spilt the beans about trying again...but only to a few - our parents, bf's, and a few co-workers. they are of course excited. i am reading alot on IUIs. I know there are lots of "things to try/do" during a infertility journey; if i can do anything that will help with this 2nd IUI; i am on it!

spermies on the mind.

We have began our donor search again. First of all, I am totally stressing that we can only order donor sperm, one cycle at a time. In budget terms, that is a whopping $246 shipping cost, per cycle. After 3 cycles (if needed) that would pay for a 4th IUI cycle. This doesn't sit well with me. I remember my RE saying at one point they could store for up to 6 weeks. When I called Thursday I wasn't told this. I will question again.

I fell in love with our donor we chose the first cycle. He had physcial features of both Jay and I, had a wonderful family history - health, mental, education, and had successful pregnancies reported. We may go with the same donor, after all it was probably 99.7% more my body's fault for the BFN than the donor, but we continue to look. Jay is always in good spirits and is never anything but positive and supportive; I know this must be so difficult for him. I'm blessed with such a wonderful husband.

Our new beginning....

Because it took me just shy of a year to try this again, I removed all previous posts of our first IUI journey. So, sorry if it's a little empty around here. After loosing the 4 y.o. foster child we were hours away from the start of the adoption process to our first official BFN; I had a really ruff year. Last night, I finally packed the final pictures of our foster children and put them away. I spent sometime with God afterwards and prayed for strength and courage to move forward.

Diagnoses:

Her: PCOS  Him: Male Factor Infertility

How we got here:

After 2 years of dating, Jay & I married in 2001. We knew we wanted children and started trying right away. By 2005, there were no babies. I made our first appointment with a local Fertility Specialist in the spring of 2005. Jay kindly donated a sperm sample and I went through a lovely physical exam. It was confirmed that I had Polycystic Ovaries (PCOS) and I was placed on Metformin. I was also given Provera to induce a cycle as well as Clomid, to start on cycle day 4. A few days passed and we received a call stating Jay's sperm count was negative; confused, I stopped Provera. Thinking the results were incorrect, we requested to be tested again through our PCP. Sadly, the test results came back the same.

Jay was devastated; I was confused. This is where our journey began. In 2007, we made the decision to become foster parents and was blessed with several precious children. During this time, having the luxury of staying at home, I consumed myself with research on infertility and PCOS. We had been told of several sperm exploratory and retrieval surgeries for Jay. The goal would be to hopefully retrieve sperm, if indeed there were blockages, then proceed with IVF. This procedure in addition to the In-Vitro, was insanely expensive; neither of which our insurance covered; I also understood his views on the sense of finality he would feel, in the event of unsucessful retrievals. We researched embryo adoption; this is the direction I wanted to purse, as both the egg and sperm would be adopted. We were then introduced to sperm donation and Interuterine Insemination (IUI). I allowed Jay to make this decision, since donor sperm would be involved; after months of prayer and discussion, we decided to begin our IUI journey.

In September 2008 our darling foster children were reunited with birth family, one day before the adoption process was to begin. Our hearts were shattered; our hands tied. In July 2009, we made our first appointment with our new RE, who had came highly recommended. Actually, during this time, my neighbor was currently pregnant with triplets, after a 5th successful IUI and drug therapy.

July 21, 2009: Our first appointment was scheduled with a different Fertility Specialist than we first saw in 2005. It was confirmed that with a sperm count of zero, exploratory surgery wouldn't even be considered. Fortunately, we had earlier decided the direction we wanted to pursue and had identified the perfect donor. My Metformin was increased and I was to start Femara on cycle days 3-7.

July 25, 2009: Cycle day 1

July 27, 2009: Started Femara thru Cycle day 7.

August 13, 2009: Cycle day 16 ultrasound - 2 follies, 14 & 16; Trigger Shot in evening

August 16, 2009: Our first IUI

September 2, 2009: Beta - Negative; Started new cycle early AM.

Our second cycle was to begin in September, however an uncooperative work schedule interrupted the cycle day 16 ultrasound; so this month was not successful. At this time, we decided to wait until after the holidays and start again after the new year.

April 1, 2010: Anxiously awaiting my cycle to begin to proceed with our 2nd IUI. Restarted Metformin; 1500mg.