Friends and family who have been following our infertility journey--I know many of you have wanted another update about round two of IVF (aka, our first Frozen Embryo Transfer).
As many of you know, we transferred two frozen embryos on July 18th. The transfer itself went a lot smoother than the first time. Our embryos this time successfully transferred with one pass through the catheter (last time it took two passes). We were so excited this time around because we had decided to put two embryos in. We were feeling good--the two embryos gave us peace of mind. Some of you might think we were crazy for putting two in, but here's the reality of transferring two embryos--just because you transfer two doesn't mean that they will both stick or that either of them will stick. If two were to stick, then so be it--that was our thinking. After the transfer we waited two weeks to find out whether or not our little babes stuck. Anyone who struggles with infertility and has been through this process knows what I mean when I say, those two weeks are literally the LONGEST two weeks of your life. At least they seem that way. Throughout those two weeks, you try to figure out what every twinge and cramp means. You pray for a sign that tells you that you are indeed pregnant. Three days after our transfer, I experienced quite a bit of spotting. More spotting followed the next day. My immediate thought was, "Could this be implantation bleeding?!!!" Every day after this I experienced very light spotting in the morning and afternoon. This was VERY different from my normal cycles. I had NEVER experienced spotting this many days before my period was due. I thought for sure that this difference was a good thing, that I could in fact be pregnant. After two weeks of holding onto hope and feeling confident in this round (because my period didn't show up), it was time to take my blood test. We walked with our head held high into the doctor's office and the nurse took my blood. I couldn't wait to hear the results later that day. I started to put the cart before the horse as I waited for the doctor's office to call with the results--I began playing out how I would tell Eric, how we would tell our families, and how we would tell the world that we beat infertility after all these years. Around 3:00 the doctor's office called. I answered the phone with so much excitement, but I was met with a voice that didn't seem as ecstatic. The nurse then told me that unfortunately, my blood test was negative. My immediate response was, "You're kidding?" She said, "unfortunately I'm not kidding. I'm so sorry." I replied, "But I haven't started my period!" She proceeded to tell me that the estrogen pills and progesterone capsules I'd been taking could keep my period from coming. I said, "Okay, well if that's the case then why have I been experiencing spotting since three days after transfer? She said, "The progesterone capsules can cause you to spot." I appreciated the information, although I had read that online--just didn't believe mine was from the progesterone since the first IVF round with progesterone didn't have this "spotting" effect on me. I'm now wondering if it had to do with me using a generic form of progesterone capsules this time around. Lesson #1 learned from this round of IVF--you can NEVER rely on your symptoms…what you think might be a symptom of pregnancy could very easily just be a symptom from your meds. As much as that sucks, it's true. There's absolutely no telling if you're pregnant until you get the results of your blood test.
The night we received our blood test results might've been the hardest night we've had so far in this journey. A lot of tears were shed (I ugly cried for a good two hours). It all of a sudden became hard for me to think positively and my mind began to go back to that questioning God state. In the midst of my ugly crying, Eric helped remind me of how far we've come and why we're doing this. In the 11 years that we've been together, we've never had such a serious conversation about God. Not only did we talk about how much we've grown in our faith and how to revamp our prayers, but we also talked about our IVF experience.
There were a few things that we talked about specifically that stuck with me:
1. If we had gotten pregnant after doing our first IUI last year, we would've been so undeserving of that child. We wouldn't have grown together like we have. (Side note: A lot of people have asked if infertility has distanced Eric and I from each other--in the beginning it did. We were keeping a huge secret from others and I didn't like that. I wanted our voices to be heard, but Eric wasn't quite in that mind set yet. That was extremely hard for me, but I pushed on. Eric admitted to me that a year ago he was scared to death thinking about bringing a baby into this world. The feeling of having another human being solely relying on us to keep it alive and healthy was overwhelming to him. He admitted to me the night we found out our blood results that he's no longer scared, but ready. If our first IUI would've worked back in 2015, we wouldn't have gotten to experience this complete shift in mindset. God knew that, hence why those IUIs didn't work for us).
2. IVF isn't as easy as a lot of people think it is. Eric and I discussed how those going through infertility (and even those who aren't) have this false idea that infertility treatments are going to work the first time or that they will cure everything. Wrong. The real truth is that it may take several rounds of IVF before having a successful pregnancy. There's also the possibility that your infertility treatments won't work at all. As negative as this all sounds, it's the truth. That cold hard truth that we speak of. Don't get me wrong, we have a fabulous doctor that has adjusted our treatments to suit our case, but only God knows whether or not these treatments are going to lead us to the light at the end of the tunnel--that joy that we've been waiting to experience for four years now.
3. God makes promises if we just listen for His voice. (A little back story to what I'm about to tell you: After our first failed IVF round, I spoke with my mom. She told me that sometimes God speaks to us if we are quiet and just listen for His voice and guidance. She asked me, "Mary, haven't you ever experienced God speaking to you?" I told her that I couldn't think of an instance where I knew that God was speaking to me. I then asked, "How do you know that it's God speaking to you?" She replied, "Trust me, you'll know. There will be a peace that comes over you after He's spoken to you and He will keep repeating himself just in case you don't get it the first time." Not but an hour later as I was praying, God spoke to me…loud and clear. He spoke the name, "Abraham" to me. I immediately thought, "Is that you God?" Oh it was Him alright, but I didn't know that for sure until a little bit later. I couldn't get that name (Abraham) out of my head. I went upstairs to take a shower and I pondered why God gave me this name. All of a sudden it dawned on me….maybe God wanted me to look up Abraham in the Bible. I'm no Bible expert and I had no idea what the story of Abraham was. After getting out of the shower, I typed into Google, "The story of Abraham in the Bible." What I found had me in tears. If you are struggling with infertility, look up these stories. I can guarantee that you will be able to relate to them. For those of you who don't know, Abraham was married to Sarah, who was barren. God spoke to Abraham and told him that he would have a son named Isaac. Abraham and Sarah were both in their nineties and as impossible as this idea seemed, Abraham believed that God would fulfill the promise He made him…..and He DID. This story hit home to me and I began to cry reading it. I started to read all of the other stories about Abraham (Abraham leaving his home and traveling to the Promised Land because God told him to do so, Abraham being willing to give his son Isaac as a burnt offering, but God stopping him in the midst of it and telling him to use an animal instead, etc.). These stories helped me to realize how similar our journey is to Abraham's. Time and time again, Abraham's faith was tested by God….just like how our faith has been tested time and time again by God in our infertility journey. By speaking the name Abraham to me, God was giving me a promise. A promise that He was going to see us through this hardship--that He is walking through the fire right beside us and that this pain we are experiencing now won't compare to the joy that is coming. We must follow the path that God has made for us and accept whatever it is that He has in store for us. Abraham didn't know where God was leading him, but he trusted in God to take him where he needed to go. If we listen to God's voice closely enough, He will lead us exactly where we are supposed to go. Through these stories, we are also reminded that God takes what seems like the impossible and makes it possible. The name and stories of Abraham will always remind us of the promise God gave us that day. The promise that He's going to see us through this struggle and that we must trust Him to be in control of our situation.
After Eric and my two hour conversation, we prayed together. We prayed that God would open up a door for us if we were meant to continue with IVF. That God would be in control of when we did the next round if it was in His will for us to continue on this journey. If not this journey, we prayed that He would open up another door that told us otherwise. The next day (within an hour of me praying these same things over again), our fertility doctor called us personally (we've NEVER spoken with him on the phone--always just the nurses). He was looking through our file and noticed our negative blood test result. After reflecting on our treatments, he suggested that we do endometrial scratching. This was a procedure that we'd never even heard of before. Dr. B. explained the procedure to us and explained that this scratching would hopefully help our embryos to grab onto my uterine lining. Our issue as of now is that we have perfectly healthy looking embryos, but they're not sticking in order to implant themselves into my uterus. Endometrial scratching is known to help with this issue. By going inside of me with a catheter, Dr. B. was able to scratch my lining, which fosters new growth cells, which will hopefully help our embryos to stick and implant themselves. This procedure wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was uncomfortable, sure, but the pressure/extreme cramping I felt while the scratching was happening only lasted for a minute (thank goodness!!! Squeezed Eric's hand the whole time!). The biopsy of my lining that Dr. B. took was sent off and examined. We have yet to hear the results of that biopsy as to whether or not everything is normal looking. Praying that everything comes back normal! Due to us doing the scratching this month (which is when Dr. B wanted it done) I had to take this cycle off from doing IVF. The scratching effect lasts for six months, so we must use the coming months to our benefit. Dr. B. would like us to go right into our next frozen embryo transfer in September. They find the first few months after the scratching to be the most successful. We are praying for success.
If our infertility journey has taught us anything, it's that God opens doors right when He knows you need them the most. Was it a coincidence that our doctor called within hours of us praying for a door to be opened if we were supposed to continue with IVF? Maybe, but I doubt it. God heard our prayer. He reassured us that this is in fact the route that we are supposed to be on. So we will continue on--walking by faith, just like Abraham did. Our trust is in God that He is going to see us through this struggle….someway, somehow, in HIS timing.
Please if you will, continue to pray for us as we explore this new route that God has placed in front of us. Please pray that God will help continue to strengthen our relationship with Him and guide us in the direction that we are supposed to go. We pray that God will help us to remain faithful and hopeful that this pain will come to an end one day. Lastly, we ask that God will remind us of the promise of Abraham.
I've been reading a book titled, "Abraham, A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths." I've learned a lot from this book about Abraham, but one line resonated with me this past week. "The message of Abraham is to be alone, to be quiet, and to listen. If you never hear the Call in the first place, you'll never know which way to go." Oh how true this line is. God called to me in my silence as I sat listening for Him to speak to me. The moment He spoke Abraham's name to me, a peace came over me. This is our calling--to experience and share our journey through infertility--though it be very hard at times--we must hold on to our faith because God is not done with us yet. And so our journey continues…….
Friday, August 19, 2016
Monday, July 11, 2016
The Ins and Outs of Our Infertility Story
As I sit down to write this post, I'm not even sure where to begin (it has taken me several days just to complete). I'm not sure which part of infertility you want to know about…the emotional side, the "having no filter about your body and how it functions" side, the religious side, or the cold hard factual side? So I guess I will start with the factual side by taking you through our journey of infertility.
In August of 2012, we got married and decided right away that we wanted to try and start a family. Most people like to ride out their first few years of marriage by traveling and getting to experience life as a couple. We felt like we had already done the latter seeing as we've been together since 2005. To us, our initial thought was that getting pregnant would be easy. Looking back, we were pretty innocent. We knew nothing of the infertility world. We tried for two years, became frustrated, and decided to seek help. We scheduled an appointment with an OB, which ended in tears. She sent us through some basic tests to help pinpoint if and what the issue was. I had a couple of blood draws to check my hormone levels. I also had something called an HSG done. This was a procedure where a catheter was inserted and colored dye was squirted in to see whether or not my fallopian tubes were open (not a very comfortable procedure, but actually quite neat to see the dye enter the tubes on the screen). Good news was, both of my tubes were open (no blockages found!). Hooray! The next box to check off was going through a trans-vaginal ultrasound to see if there were any cysts on my ovaries. No issues were found there either. Eric had to do a semen analysis, which checked his sperm for motility, count, and morphology (the shape). Unfortunately, there was our culprit. We had poor morphology. As much as we wanted answers, it was devastating to confirm that we actually had an issue. Our OB referred us to a fertility clinic, but it took 8 months of processing all of our information before we decided to call and set up an appointment. May I also add in that it was at this point in the process that we discovered that the majority of insurance companies cover zero infertility tests and treatments. Everything is out of pocket, which clearly played a part in our wait to schedule our appointment at the fertility clinic as well.
In May of 2015, we met with a doctor at the fertility clinic (who is still our doctor today) and discussed our results. Dr. B. discussed the two options we could try--an IUI (intrauterine insemination), or IVF (in-vitro fertilization). We decided to try doing an IUI in May since it was the cheaper option. An IUI involved a blood draw and me being on Femara pills on cycle days 3-7 (if I remember correctly). An ultrasound was had to check how many follicles we had growing and how mature they were (for those of you who don't know what a follicle is…normally there is one egg inside of each follicle). When the follicles were mature enough, I took a trigger shot (hCg shot) to the stomach to release the eggs. A couple of days later was insemination day. Eric's sample was put through a catheter that was put into me to get the good sperm closer to my eggs. That first round was unsuccessful. We were then told to take a month off while Eric took some new vitamins that the doctor recommended. I was disappointed to have to wait, but understood the reasoning behind it. We tried another round of IUI in July, which was also unsuccessful. The doctor had originally recommended that we do three rounds of IUI, but we weren't feeling it. Which then led to us diving into the world of IVF.
IVF is it's own animal we've come to find out. It took us almost another year to begin this process. We had to mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially prepare ourselves for this next step. In April (2016) we met with Dr. B. again to talk about IVF and what our chances would be of having a successful pregnancy. He recommended that we do IVF with ICSI. For those of you who are infertility amateurs like we once were, a normal IVF is done by putting a good sperm and a mature egg in a petri dish and letting them do their thing. IVF with ICSI is where the good sperm are actually inserted into the mature eggs using a very thin glass needle, thus creating the embryos through science. I bet you think science is cool now if you didn't before! Dr. B. felt confident that IVF with ICSI would work for us. We had two options that were given to us by the financial lady that we also met with while we were there. Option #1 was to go through one fresh cycle of IVF and pay said amount, or Option #2 was that we could pay another said amount and do six rounds of IVF (three fresh cycles and three frozen cycles). Who knew that IVF could be such a gamble? We were then sent home to sort through the overwhelming information that we were given. Did we want to be gamblers and go with option #1 (praying that it worked the first time) or did we want to play it safe and go with option #2 (it would be worth it if we had to do more than one cycle before having a successful pregnancy that led to a live birth)? Decisions, decisions. After a lot of thought and prayer, we went with option #2. It made us feel more at ease and would be cost effective if we had to go through this more than once to get pregnant. We got started almost immediately. In May we went to our IVF education class given by one of our IVF nurses. She went through a stack of paperwork with us on the procedures and the medications. She also taught us how to give the injections. I will say one thing--in the IVF world, you get over your fear of needles pretty quickly. Also while we were there, both of us had some bloodwork done to check for HIV and to check my thyroid. After our IVF education class, we waited for my cycle to start in May. Oh how excited we were to begin a new adventure! We stepped into the IVF train, strapped ourselves in for the 46 day journey, and prayed hard. On cycle day 1 we started an antibiotic that cleaned out our systems from any toxins and bacteria to prevent an infection from occurring. Boy did it clean us out. Talk about a stomach ache. Cycle days 3-16 consisted of me taking a birth control pill. Sounds very odd, I know…Why am I taking a birth control pill which prevents pregnancy when I'm trying to get pregnant? Well let me tell you why. The birth control pill assured that I wouldn't ovulate on my own, which is important. Dr. B wanted to be in control of when I ovulated. Everything has to be timed perfectly. We had an ultrasound on cycle day 13 to check and see if the birth control did what it was supposed to do. At our appointment, we got the go ahead to officially start our injections! On cycle day 20, we started our first injection of Follistim. Our awesome neighbor, who is a nurse, came over each night to give me my shot(s) at a certain time. For five days straight, I continued to take this injection to my stomach. Then we had another ultrasound with Dr. B to see how many follicles the Follistim injections created. We had 14 good looking follicles so far and my lining looked great. Yay for another high point to this process! I also had bloodwork done to check my hormone levels. The nurse called later to say that they were on the higher end, which wasn't good. Too high of levels could cause my body to overstimulate. My medication had to be adjusted. The next three days consisted of two injections to the stomach at one time. This time I was taking Follistim and Ganirelix. We had another ultrasound on cycle day 27 to see how many follicles we had and to see how mature they were looking. This time, we had 19 good looking follicles and still my lining was looking "beautiful." My medicine was once again adjusted. For one more day I took both injections. The next night, I took my hCg shot to release all of the eggs from my follicles. Two days later was my egg retrieval. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything past 11:00 the night before. I was to not wear any perfume, wash with a bar of soap, and wear no makeup. This was all because the eggs had to be retrieved in a very sterile environment. I was extremely nervous and scared for this part of the process. I was mostly scared about having an IV put in my hand. On the drive down to Cincinnati, I took the Valium that I was prescribed, which definitely had me feeling good by the time we got there. Once there, my IV was started, and I was sedated to some extent. I was rolled into a sterile room where the retrieval took place while Eric was off doing his thing. I didn't feel much during the retrieval except the two times the doctor went into each of my vaginal walls. A very long needle is used in the retrieval process. The doctor can see on the ultrasound screen where the follicles are that need to be sucked out. The long needle was put through my vaginal wall on each side where my ovaries are located. He then moved the needle ever so slightly to poke into each follicle and suck out all of the fluid, including the eggs. Once the retrieval was over, I was wheeled back to recovery for an hour to rest/wake up. Eric met me back there and was sure to capture pictures of me still looking and feeling pretty loopy. Thanks honey. The good news was that they retrieved 21 eggs!! We weren't expecting that many, but we surely praised God for giving us these wonderful results. Once I'd been in recovery for an hour, I had a little snack before we were sent home to heal for the next 5 days with meds. I will tell you what--I do not envy anyone who has gone through more than one egg retrieval. Air high fives to you because the healing process was not fun. Before the egg retrieval, there was a lot of pressure being put on my bladder and my intestines because my ovaries were stretched and so big. After the egg retrieval was much worse. For the first day and a half, I couldn't stand up straight. I walked like a little old grandma to the bathroom and back. The couch and my heating pad were my best friends. Oh and pillows. Lots of pillows. They helped support my lower back which was killing me by the end of the week. I had moments where I felt nauseous. I discovered what it feels like to pee and be in pain at the same time. Not fun. I had to make sure that I ate lots of protein to help my body to not hyper stimulate because there is a condition that some women get after a large egg retrieval called OHSS. It stands for Over hyper stimulation syndrome. I have read stories where some women get this and end up in the hospital. It also puts a kink in your IVF plans. If I would've ended up with this syndrome, we wouldn't have been able to transfer the embryo that we did. We would've had to freeze all of our embryos and wait until after my next cycle to do a frozen embryo transfer. Backing up a little bit, we were called the day after the retrieval and were told that 16 of my eggs were fertilized. Two of those embryos didn't make it right away, which left us with 14 embryos growing. By transfer day (5 days later), we had one gorgeous looking embryo that was already in the hatching stage, two beautiful looking embryos in the blastocyst stage, and several that were still making their way into blastocysts. On June 18th, we transferred in the one gorgeous looking embryo that was in the hatching stage. Then began our two week wait. We were excited, overjoyed, anxious, and cautiously optimistic as we waited for June 30th, which was testing day. I should also add in that I was directed to continue doing my vaginal progesterone capsules to help sustain a possible pregnancy (let me tell you how fun those are to put in…if you could only see my face right about now you'd know exactly how fun they are). We started those right after egg retrieval day to put the natural progesterone back into my body since it was sucked out with the fluid inside each of my follicles. On a less visual note, two days after our transfer, we were told that we had a total of 4 embryos that made it to freeze--two Day 5 blastocysts and two Day 6 blastocysts. Woohoo! This was awesome news! This meant that if the first round didn't work that we could go straight into a frozen embryo transfer using some of our frozen embryos instead of having to go through a fresh cycle again. During the two week wait, I had cramping, a little bit of nausea, a runny nose, and some twinges here and there. As someone who has experienced infertility for the last 4 years, my mind immediately tries to figure out what every feeling means or if it means anything at all. On Sunday, June 26th, I started spotting. I thought it was a little weird to be spotting this far past our transfer, but knew that some people have what is called implantation bleeding. I tried not to freak out, but as the day went on, my spotting changed color and began to get heavier. By Monday morning, I was lightly bleeding. By Monday afternoon, my bleeding was even heavier. I was in tears. I called the fertility clinic and spoke with one of the nurses about my bleeding. She told me to take a home pregnancy test first and that they'd move up my blood pregnancy test to Tuesday instead of Thursday. Typically they don't like you to take a home test just because of all of the hormones that are left in your body from the injectables, procedures, etc., but at this point, it was far enough out that a positive would've showed up on a home test if I were pregnant. I took the home test and it came back negative, as usual. I know nothing, but negatives. This is the raw emotion that someone dealing with infertility goes through each month. You get your hopes up just to have them knocked down time and time again. It's hard. It sucks. But what I have found is that when I've been knocked down time and time again, God has met me there.
This is where the faith part of infertility comes into play. When we first started our journey, I questioned God and His goodness. I wanted to know, "Why me God? Why did you choose me to go through these hard times? Why are you making me wait? Why can't it be easy for us like it is for so many others?" There were moments when I sat on the bathroom floor and screamed at God all of my frustrations. A lot of people say that those who struggle with infertility go through the five stages of grief. When we first found out that we in fact had an infertility issue, we were in denial. We didn't want to believe it. Part of why it took us so long to call the fertility clinic was that we believed that maybe if we gave it just a bit longer that it would happen naturally. Then came anger. We became angry that it just wasn't happening for us. This is where my screaming fest with God came in. To many, I tried to hide my anger and frustration. I didn't want people to see me in that light. Deep down though, I was angry. Angry with God that this fertility thing wasn't working out the way we wanted it to. When we started to realize that things weren't going our way, we started to bargain with God. If only God would give us a child, I would promise Him that I would go to church more, read His word more, pray more. I found out quickly, that God doesn't like bargains. At least not the kind I was speaking of. In 2015 when we went through two IUIs that both failed, I became 'depressed.' I use that word lightly. I was upset that the cheaper option didn't work and that we once again were left with negative pregnancy tests. During that summer and into the fall, I skipped out on three baby showers for family members and friends. I felt terrible not going, but my emotions were just too high. Baby showers for someone who struggles with infertility are hard. I don't say this for you to have sympathy on me. I'm not asking for your sympathy, but rather your understanding. Thankfully those family members and friends completely understood the emotional roller coaster that I was on. It took a long while for both Eric and I to process everything we'd been through and the emotions that we felt. As upset as we were that the IUIs didn't work, it became clear to us that we needed God. I'm sure you've heard the saying, "When life knocks you down on your knees, you're in the perfect position to pray." This was us. We had gone through so many tests and had tried one type of treatment and yet we were still knocked down to our knees. This was the beginning of our acceptance phase. We began to think of our journey in a completely different light. We began truly listening to every message at church. We prayed hard every day for God to keep us faithful and to continue to give us hope even when we felt like our hope was dangling by a string. We began reading God's word and bought a book of daily devotionals that we discuss each night. As we look back on our journey so far, we realize that God wasn't trying to hurt us through all of these trials and tribulations. He's trying to build us into the people He wants us to be. He has made us stronger than we ever were when we first started this adventure. He has planted people in our lives along the way that have helped encourage us and who have kept us going at moments when we were feeling low. He led us to our fertility clinic and our fertility doctor through some friends of ours that went there and had success. Our minds were so cloudy before as we were going through all of the typical infertility emotions. We weren't looking at our journey the way God wanted us to. God picked us for a reason to go through these trials. He knew that through these trials, our relationship with Him would grow deeper and that our patience would lead us to wait for His timing. We've learned that God's timing is never too early, never too late, but is right on time. As we are in the midst of waiting, we continue to pray hard that God will help us to open up our hands and our hearts to accepting that He is in control. Time and time again, we have tried to play God and plan out our lives. We have discovered that life doesn't work that way. We are not in control. God is in control. All of our worries, fears, anxieties--we give them to God. Here recently, I've been praying that God would help me to listen more than I speak. I've prayed that He would speak to me in a way that I would recognize His voice/direction and in a way that would bring me peace. After our failed round of IVF, after praying hard every day for God to speak to me, it happened. For the first time, I heard it. God spoke to me, again and again the same promise. Afterward, that peace I'd been looking for came over me. It felt amazing. There is a long story behind this that will be revealed at a later time. Going back to those questions that I screamed at God at the very beginning of our journey…some of those questions may never be answered. We may never understand God's timing and why things have worked out the way they have. What we do know though is that God is with us, lighting our path every step of the way. Our time is coming.
What can you do as family and friends? Pray. Your continued thoughts, prayers, and words of encouragement keep us going. We are beyond grateful to all of you for your listening ears, shoulders to cry on, and for your concern/interest in our journey. A simple thank you just isn't enough to show you our gratitude. We love you all and we thank God every day for blessing us with such an amazing support system.
What now you may ask--what is next for us? We have actually already started round two of IVF. Because God blessed us with four frozen embryos, we are going through the process of a frozen embryo transfer. I am on estrogen pills to help keep me from ovulating on my own and to build up my lining. I will start up my progesterone capsules again six days before transfer. We had our first ultrasound last Friday (July 8th). Dr. B. was looking for my lining to be higher than a 7. It was at a 13! He was ecstatic and kept commenting on how beautiful it was. Bloodwork was also done to check my estrogen and progesterone levels. Both must've been good because we never got a call telling us otherwise. Thanks be to God for everything looking as it should so far! God is good! We have decided this time to transfer two frozen embryos. Our transfer is scheduled for July 18th. As we prepare for this transfer, we ask that you pray for us. We ask for the strength to make it through this transfer, the strength to accept whatever the outcome may be, and the strength to find peace during our two week wait. We pray for God to fully have His hand in this and to let His plan for us be revealed when the timing is right.
We know that many of you (friends and family) have asked lots of questions and have wanted updates. We hope that this post brings you up to speed on our journey and also helps you to know us on a deeper level. A lot of people are afraid of asking us questions about infertility, but we are here to tell you to ask away! There aren't many questions that we haven't been asked. We feel that one of our purposes here on Earth is to share our story. We would like to normalize infertility as much as possible. It's not something to be embarrassed about. It's not something to hide and keep inside--trust me, we tried at first. It was better for us to get it out there and once we did, we realized that we have a stronger support system than we ever knew was possible. We've also realized that by sharing our story, we've helped others who are in the same situation and we've opened the eyes of so many who know nothing of the infertility world. What would you do if you weren't afraid? Share your story with others. Everyone has a story and this is ours.
In August of 2012, we got married and decided right away that we wanted to try and start a family. Most people like to ride out their first few years of marriage by traveling and getting to experience life as a couple. We felt like we had already done the latter seeing as we've been together since 2005. To us, our initial thought was that getting pregnant would be easy. Looking back, we were pretty innocent. We knew nothing of the infertility world. We tried for two years, became frustrated, and decided to seek help. We scheduled an appointment with an OB, which ended in tears. She sent us through some basic tests to help pinpoint if and what the issue was. I had a couple of blood draws to check my hormone levels. I also had something called an HSG done. This was a procedure where a catheter was inserted and colored dye was squirted in to see whether or not my fallopian tubes were open (not a very comfortable procedure, but actually quite neat to see the dye enter the tubes on the screen). Good news was, both of my tubes were open (no blockages found!). Hooray! The next box to check off was going through a trans-vaginal ultrasound to see if there were any cysts on my ovaries. No issues were found there either. Eric had to do a semen analysis, which checked his sperm for motility, count, and morphology (the shape). Unfortunately, there was our culprit. We had poor morphology. As much as we wanted answers, it was devastating to confirm that we actually had an issue. Our OB referred us to a fertility clinic, but it took 8 months of processing all of our information before we decided to call and set up an appointment. May I also add in that it was at this point in the process that we discovered that the majority of insurance companies cover zero infertility tests and treatments. Everything is out of pocket, which clearly played a part in our wait to schedule our appointment at the fertility clinic as well.
In May of 2015, we met with a doctor at the fertility clinic (who is still our doctor today) and discussed our results. Dr. B. discussed the two options we could try--an IUI (intrauterine insemination), or IVF (in-vitro fertilization). We decided to try doing an IUI in May since it was the cheaper option. An IUI involved a blood draw and me being on Femara pills on cycle days 3-7 (if I remember correctly). An ultrasound was had to check how many follicles we had growing and how mature they were (for those of you who don't know what a follicle is…normally there is one egg inside of each follicle). When the follicles were mature enough, I took a trigger shot (hCg shot) to the stomach to release the eggs. A couple of days later was insemination day. Eric's sample was put through a catheter that was put into me to get the good sperm closer to my eggs. That first round was unsuccessful. We were then told to take a month off while Eric took some new vitamins that the doctor recommended. I was disappointed to have to wait, but understood the reasoning behind it. We tried another round of IUI in July, which was also unsuccessful. The doctor had originally recommended that we do three rounds of IUI, but we weren't feeling it. Which then led to us diving into the world of IVF.
IVF is it's own animal we've come to find out. It took us almost another year to begin this process. We had to mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially prepare ourselves for this next step. In April (2016) we met with Dr. B. again to talk about IVF and what our chances would be of having a successful pregnancy. He recommended that we do IVF with ICSI. For those of you who are infertility amateurs like we once were, a normal IVF is done by putting a good sperm and a mature egg in a petri dish and letting them do their thing. IVF with ICSI is where the good sperm are actually inserted into the mature eggs using a very thin glass needle, thus creating the embryos through science. I bet you think science is cool now if you didn't before! Dr. B. felt confident that IVF with ICSI would work for us. We had two options that were given to us by the financial lady that we also met with while we were there. Option #1 was to go through one fresh cycle of IVF and pay said amount, or Option #2 was that we could pay another said amount and do six rounds of IVF (three fresh cycles and three frozen cycles). Who knew that IVF could be such a gamble? We were then sent home to sort through the overwhelming information that we were given. Did we want to be gamblers and go with option #1 (praying that it worked the first time) or did we want to play it safe and go with option #2 (it would be worth it if we had to do more than one cycle before having a successful pregnancy that led to a live birth)? Decisions, decisions. After a lot of thought and prayer, we went with option #2. It made us feel more at ease and would be cost effective if we had to go through this more than once to get pregnant. We got started almost immediately. In May we went to our IVF education class given by one of our IVF nurses. She went through a stack of paperwork with us on the procedures and the medications. She also taught us how to give the injections. I will say one thing--in the IVF world, you get over your fear of needles pretty quickly. Also while we were there, both of us had some bloodwork done to check for HIV and to check my thyroid. After our IVF education class, we waited for my cycle to start in May. Oh how excited we were to begin a new adventure! We stepped into the IVF train, strapped ourselves in for the 46 day journey, and prayed hard. On cycle day 1 we started an antibiotic that cleaned out our systems from any toxins and bacteria to prevent an infection from occurring. Boy did it clean us out. Talk about a stomach ache. Cycle days 3-16 consisted of me taking a birth control pill. Sounds very odd, I know…Why am I taking a birth control pill which prevents pregnancy when I'm trying to get pregnant? Well let me tell you why. The birth control pill assured that I wouldn't ovulate on my own, which is important. Dr. B wanted to be in control of when I ovulated. Everything has to be timed perfectly. We had an ultrasound on cycle day 13 to check and see if the birth control did what it was supposed to do. At our appointment, we got the go ahead to officially start our injections! On cycle day 20, we started our first injection of Follistim. Our awesome neighbor, who is a nurse, came over each night to give me my shot(s) at a certain time. For five days straight, I continued to take this injection to my stomach. Then we had another ultrasound with Dr. B to see how many follicles the Follistim injections created. We had 14 good looking follicles so far and my lining looked great. Yay for another high point to this process! I also had bloodwork done to check my hormone levels. The nurse called later to say that they were on the higher end, which wasn't good. Too high of levels could cause my body to overstimulate. My medication had to be adjusted. The next three days consisted of two injections to the stomach at one time. This time I was taking Follistim and Ganirelix. We had another ultrasound on cycle day 27 to see how many follicles we had and to see how mature they were looking. This time, we had 19 good looking follicles and still my lining was looking "beautiful." My medicine was once again adjusted. For one more day I took both injections. The next night, I took my hCg shot to release all of the eggs from my follicles. Two days later was my egg retrieval. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything past 11:00 the night before. I was to not wear any perfume, wash with a bar of soap, and wear no makeup. This was all because the eggs had to be retrieved in a very sterile environment. I was extremely nervous and scared for this part of the process. I was mostly scared about having an IV put in my hand. On the drive down to Cincinnati, I took the Valium that I was prescribed, which definitely had me feeling good by the time we got there. Once there, my IV was started, and I was sedated to some extent. I was rolled into a sterile room where the retrieval took place while Eric was off doing his thing. I didn't feel much during the retrieval except the two times the doctor went into each of my vaginal walls. A very long needle is used in the retrieval process. The doctor can see on the ultrasound screen where the follicles are that need to be sucked out. The long needle was put through my vaginal wall on each side where my ovaries are located. He then moved the needle ever so slightly to poke into each follicle and suck out all of the fluid, including the eggs. Once the retrieval was over, I was wheeled back to recovery for an hour to rest/wake up. Eric met me back there and was sure to capture pictures of me still looking and feeling pretty loopy. Thanks honey. The good news was that they retrieved 21 eggs!! We weren't expecting that many, but we surely praised God for giving us these wonderful results. Once I'd been in recovery for an hour, I had a little snack before we were sent home to heal for the next 5 days with meds. I will tell you what--I do not envy anyone who has gone through more than one egg retrieval. Air high fives to you because the healing process was not fun. Before the egg retrieval, there was a lot of pressure being put on my bladder and my intestines because my ovaries were stretched and so big. After the egg retrieval was much worse. For the first day and a half, I couldn't stand up straight. I walked like a little old grandma to the bathroom and back. The couch and my heating pad were my best friends. Oh and pillows. Lots of pillows. They helped support my lower back which was killing me by the end of the week. I had moments where I felt nauseous. I discovered what it feels like to pee and be in pain at the same time. Not fun. I had to make sure that I ate lots of protein to help my body to not hyper stimulate because there is a condition that some women get after a large egg retrieval called OHSS. It stands for Over hyper stimulation syndrome. I have read stories where some women get this and end up in the hospital. It also puts a kink in your IVF plans. If I would've ended up with this syndrome, we wouldn't have been able to transfer the embryo that we did. We would've had to freeze all of our embryos and wait until after my next cycle to do a frozen embryo transfer. Backing up a little bit, we were called the day after the retrieval and were told that 16 of my eggs were fertilized. Two of those embryos didn't make it right away, which left us with 14 embryos growing. By transfer day (5 days later), we had one gorgeous looking embryo that was already in the hatching stage, two beautiful looking embryos in the blastocyst stage, and several that were still making their way into blastocysts. On June 18th, we transferred in the one gorgeous looking embryo that was in the hatching stage. Then began our two week wait. We were excited, overjoyed, anxious, and cautiously optimistic as we waited for June 30th, which was testing day. I should also add in that I was directed to continue doing my vaginal progesterone capsules to help sustain a possible pregnancy (let me tell you how fun those are to put in…if you could only see my face right about now you'd know exactly how fun they are). We started those right after egg retrieval day to put the natural progesterone back into my body since it was sucked out with the fluid inside each of my follicles. On a less visual note, two days after our transfer, we were told that we had a total of 4 embryos that made it to freeze--two Day 5 blastocysts and two Day 6 blastocysts. Woohoo! This was awesome news! This meant that if the first round didn't work that we could go straight into a frozen embryo transfer using some of our frozen embryos instead of having to go through a fresh cycle again. During the two week wait, I had cramping, a little bit of nausea, a runny nose, and some twinges here and there. As someone who has experienced infertility for the last 4 years, my mind immediately tries to figure out what every feeling means or if it means anything at all. On Sunday, June 26th, I started spotting. I thought it was a little weird to be spotting this far past our transfer, but knew that some people have what is called implantation bleeding. I tried not to freak out, but as the day went on, my spotting changed color and began to get heavier. By Monday morning, I was lightly bleeding. By Monday afternoon, my bleeding was even heavier. I was in tears. I called the fertility clinic and spoke with one of the nurses about my bleeding. She told me to take a home pregnancy test first and that they'd move up my blood pregnancy test to Tuesday instead of Thursday. Typically they don't like you to take a home test just because of all of the hormones that are left in your body from the injectables, procedures, etc., but at this point, it was far enough out that a positive would've showed up on a home test if I were pregnant. I took the home test and it came back negative, as usual. I know nothing, but negatives. This is the raw emotion that someone dealing with infertility goes through each month. You get your hopes up just to have them knocked down time and time again. It's hard. It sucks. But what I have found is that when I've been knocked down time and time again, God has met me there.
This is where the faith part of infertility comes into play. When we first started our journey, I questioned God and His goodness. I wanted to know, "Why me God? Why did you choose me to go through these hard times? Why are you making me wait? Why can't it be easy for us like it is for so many others?" There were moments when I sat on the bathroom floor and screamed at God all of my frustrations. A lot of people say that those who struggle with infertility go through the five stages of grief. When we first found out that we in fact had an infertility issue, we were in denial. We didn't want to believe it. Part of why it took us so long to call the fertility clinic was that we believed that maybe if we gave it just a bit longer that it would happen naturally. Then came anger. We became angry that it just wasn't happening for us. This is where my screaming fest with God came in. To many, I tried to hide my anger and frustration. I didn't want people to see me in that light. Deep down though, I was angry. Angry with God that this fertility thing wasn't working out the way we wanted it to. When we started to realize that things weren't going our way, we started to bargain with God. If only God would give us a child, I would promise Him that I would go to church more, read His word more, pray more. I found out quickly, that God doesn't like bargains. At least not the kind I was speaking of. In 2015 when we went through two IUIs that both failed, I became 'depressed.' I use that word lightly. I was upset that the cheaper option didn't work and that we once again were left with negative pregnancy tests. During that summer and into the fall, I skipped out on three baby showers for family members and friends. I felt terrible not going, but my emotions were just too high. Baby showers for someone who struggles with infertility are hard. I don't say this for you to have sympathy on me. I'm not asking for your sympathy, but rather your understanding. Thankfully those family members and friends completely understood the emotional roller coaster that I was on. It took a long while for both Eric and I to process everything we'd been through and the emotions that we felt. As upset as we were that the IUIs didn't work, it became clear to us that we needed God. I'm sure you've heard the saying, "When life knocks you down on your knees, you're in the perfect position to pray." This was us. We had gone through so many tests and had tried one type of treatment and yet we were still knocked down to our knees. This was the beginning of our acceptance phase. We began to think of our journey in a completely different light. We began truly listening to every message at church. We prayed hard every day for God to keep us faithful and to continue to give us hope even when we felt like our hope was dangling by a string. We began reading God's word and bought a book of daily devotionals that we discuss each night. As we look back on our journey so far, we realize that God wasn't trying to hurt us through all of these trials and tribulations. He's trying to build us into the people He wants us to be. He has made us stronger than we ever were when we first started this adventure. He has planted people in our lives along the way that have helped encourage us and who have kept us going at moments when we were feeling low. He led us to our fertility clinic and our fertility doctor through some friends of ours that went there and had success. Our minds were so cloudy before as we were going through all of the typical infertility emotions. We weren't looking at our journey the way God wanted us to. God picked us for a reason to go through these trials. He knew that through these trials, our relationship with Him would grow deeper and that our patience would lead us to wait for His timing. We've learned that God's timing is never too early, never too late, but is right on time. As we are in the midst of waiting, we continue to pray hard that God will help us to open up our hands and our hearts to accepting that He is in control. Time and time again, we have tried to play God and plan out our lives. We have discovered that life doesn't work that way. We are not in control. God is in control. All of our worries, fears, anxieties--we give them to God. Here recently, I've been praying that God would help me to listen more than I speak. I've prayed that He would speak to me in a way that I would recognize His voice/direction and in a way that would bring me peace. After our failed round of IVF, after praying hard every day for God to speak to me, it happened. For the first time, I heard it. God spoke to me, again and again the same promise. Afterward, that peace I'd been looking for came over me. It felt amazing. There is a long story behind this that will be revealed at a later time. Going back to those questions that I screamed at God at the very beginning of our journey…some of those questions may never be answered. We may never understand God's timing and why things have worked out the way they have. What we do know though is that God is with us, lighting our path every step of the way. Our time is coming.
What can you do as family and friends? Pray. Your continued thoughts, prayers, and words of encouragement keep us going. We are beyond grateful to all of you for your listening ears, shoulders to cry on, and for your concern/interest in our journey. A simple thank you just isn't enough to show you our gratitude. We love you all and we thank God every day for blessing us with such an amazing support system.
What now you may ask--what is next for us? We have actually already started round two of IVF. Because God blessed us with four frozen embryos, we are going through the process of a frozen embryo transfer. I am on estrogen pills to help keep me from ovulating on my own and to build up my lining. I will start up my progesterone capsules again six days before transfer. We had our first ultrasound last Friday (July 8th). Dr. B. was looking for my lining to be higher than a 7. It was at a 13! He was ecstatic and kept commenting on how beautiful it was. Bloodwork was also done to check my estrogen and progesterone levels. Both must've been good because we never got a call telling us otherwise. Thanks be to God for everything looking as it should so far! God is good! We have decided this time to transfer two frozen embryos. Our transfer is scheduled for July 18th. As we prepare for this transfer, we ask that you pray for us. We ask for the strength to make it through this transfer, the strength to accept whatever the outcome may be, and the strength to find peace during our two week wait. We pray for God to fully have His hand in this and to let His plan for us be revealed when the timing is right.
We know that many of you (friends and family) have asked lots of questions and have wanted updates. We hope that this post brings you up to speed on our journey and also helps you to know us on a deeper level. A lot of people are afraid of asking us questions about infertility, but we are here to tell you to ask away! There aren't many questions that we haven't been asked. We feel that one of our purposes here on Earth is to share our story. We would like to normalize infertility as much as possible. It's not something to be embarrassed about. It's not something to hide and keep inside--trust me, we tried at first. It was better for us to get it out there and once we did, we realized that we have a stronger support system than we ever knew was possible. We've also realized that by sharing our story, we've helped others who are in the same situation and we've opened the eyes of so many who know nothing of the infertility world. What would you do if you weren't afraid? Share your story with others. Everyone has a story and this is ours.
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