Catch up

Well it has been a while since I posted - just didn't really have the words to say. Last month we were pretty disappointed that we were in the same boat we have been in for such a long time. So let me catch you all up.

When we found out through the blood test that the medicine didn't work again the doctor went ahead and called in a higher dose that day. So we started the process over immediately instead of waiting the 2 more weeks like normal. The dosage made me go through a lot of hormonal changes which resulted in many bad days and unfortunately many bad moods. But I made it. I finished the last dose. I now go for my next blood test on Thursday October 7th.
I will be honest, I do not have high hopes of it working this month. The good news is that the doctor told me this is the last month she will try this medicine even though there is 1 more higher dose. She thinks if it doesn't work again then it isn't going to and she is ready to move on. We are ready to move on. If this dosage didn't make me ovulate then most likely they will start me with a high dose of another medicine (Femera). Sometimes people that do not respond to Clomid respond to this medicine. If it doesn't work the first month then we will be going and meeting with her to decide our plan of treatment. If both the Clomid and Femera fail to work, then we will have to go and consult about injectable or moving to IVF. We will be sitting down with her weighing the risks and cost of both and determining what may work best with the least amount of effect on my body. My body has been through the ringer, and it is tired. Losing those 2 weeks after the blood test is hard because I don't have a chance to get the medicine out of my system. But to be honest, I would rather just start the next dose instead of waiting for 2 weeks and dreading it starting back.

Justin is being very positive. I have lost a lot of faith but it really depends on which day it is and what medicine I took that day. It really affects my mood and makes me feel depressed and hopeless. He has been a rock. There are not words made to express how amazing and supportive he is in this process. I have to be a nightmare to live with and with the hot flashes I have been experiencing I know he must feel like he is living in an igloo! :) He has been quick to remind me of the goal and that God is faithful. He of course is more anxious every month and just as disappointed that it isn't working, but he is so compassionate about me having to go through the hormone treatments. I could not ask for a better partner in life - he is a constant reminder that God loves me so much and really does know what He is doing (even though it is easy to question that right now!!!)

So our journey continues. Please continue to keep our little family in your prayers. We struggle with patience and hope daily. Please pray for wisdom as we come closer to being in the position where we have to make bigger decisions. The advanced treatments scare us a bit but the vision of our baby is quick to calm those fears. We thank God daily for putting so many people in our life who not only love us but that are willing to pray on our behalf. God still answers prayers. 1 Samuel 1:27 says "I prayed for this child,and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him." I believe in the power of prayer and I believe we serve a very faithful God!

Love you friends!

Same story

We got the results of the blood test today and unfortunately it didn't work....again. Please keep praying, even though it feels like God is not listening, I know He is.

Blood Test

Tomorrow I have to go give blood. Thankfully I get to do that here so we save a day of driving. They will be able to know tomorrow if the medicine worked (made me ovulate - not pregnant). We need prayer. I do not think we will get results until Tuesday (since Monday is a holiday) but I really need this test to give us good news. This was without a doubt the hardest month on both of us. The medicine made me absolutely miserable. So please pray, right now I am not sure if we are strong enough to hear the news that it didn't work....AGAIN.
Today I have not been able to stop thinking about all of this. Even though fertility consumes us on so many levels, a lot of the times I can be busy enough at work that I can turn it off as much as possible. Today that was impossible. All I kept thinking about is how if it didn't work that I don't think I can go through this again. I don't want to so bad. I have a quitter mentality today - which is not me at all - I am soooo hard headed (ask my husband!!!). Finally something snapped and instead of feeling sorry for me I had another thought.
I thought about our future baby. Sometimes I get so consumed with us and our problems that I forget the vision. I thought about how much we already love it. I thought about if it was to write us a note right now what would it say. This is what I think it would say:

Why are you crying? You spend a lot of time crying lately, please stop it because I hate being the reason you are sad. I don't need you to waste time feeling depressed or unhappy. I plan on coming when the time is right. Until then, I need you to be strong for each other. I need you to keep planning for me and all the things we will do together. Stop blaming yourself, it isn't about you. I need you to be happy and to have faith in God - because when you see me you will believe in miracles again. I am coming, at the most perfect time for me to come. You will not regret all the time, effort, and money you have put into trying to have me - I am worth it. God has already chosen me for you and I cannot wait to meet you either. Please be patient though, God hasn't finished preparing you for me.

Maybe it is just me trying to find something to give me peace. If so then I am ok with that. But I really do believe that maybe the reason we have went through all of this is because God still has a few more things to teach us before he entrusts us with another life. Of course I want to scream at Him to hurry up and do a quick lesson, but if by waiting and being patient and having faith will help us be better parents in the future, then it is hard to be anything other than thankful for this time.

Thank you for the prayers and patiences with me the past few weeks (if you were unlucky enough to deal with the emotional roller coster!) Please keep praying!

Hard week

I haven't updated since my appointment so I thought I would tonight.
It has been a very long and hard week. I took the strong hormone medicine this week and at first it really didn't affect me - I had energy and was actually sleeping. I thought maybe this was going to be the easiest yet. By Thursday it started kicking in and it hasn't stopped. I have been a complete emotional disaster this weekend. Rather it be easily annoyed, or crying uncontrollably - it has been miserable. I know the reality that in the long run this will be worth it and that I can't let short term struggles take away long term goals - but right now I am not in that mind set. Right now I just want to be done. It is miserable having these horrible hot flashes when it is 150 degrees outside. It is horrible finally being home and off work and all I can do is lay there and cry on my husband's shoulder for no reason. It is horrible that I don't want to talk to anyone because I know I am in a rude mood and it isn't their fault. After a weekend, I feel more exahusted than when it started - which makes for a long week.
Please pray for me this week. It is one thing to be like this on the weekend when I am at home but at work this week I need to make sure I still have professionalism and patience and that is so hard when I feel like this. I just want to be holed up in a room until this passes but that isn't the real world.
I will go for blood work on September 3rd and we will see if this dosage is the 'magic dose.' If so then we will be able to do insemination next month. Please pray that this dosage works - I am not sure how much higher of a dosage I can take.
Thank you for your prayers.

1st Appointment with Dr. Craig

Today we had our first appointment and let me tell you - we felt every one of your prayers and cannot thank you enough!

First off - We LOVE her! She put me at ease instantly and that is VERY hard to do. She is a straight shooter but so confident, funny and personable! We started the appointment off with going to her office and sitting down and talking. She had already studied our file so now this was a time to listen to us and for us to hear her. We were able to talk about our history and our goal. She was able to give us ideas on what she thought and what she wanted to do. When we left her office we all had a plan.

After we got done with the consultation - we went straight in for some testing. The cool thing about the OU Reproductive Medical Center is that everything is done in that office. There is no going to the lab for bloodwork or this office for something else - it is all done there. In a regular looking doctors office we had blood drawn and an ultrasound done on me. JR also had to have another seman analysis ordered because they have a fertility urologist on staff - one of the 3 in the US and they look for things that regular hospitals don't.

The TransVanganal ultrasound confirmed what she thought was wrong with me - so officially I was diagnosised with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome -PCOS. If you do not know what that is then you can read about here. I had done research on the internet and found this and thought it sounded dead on but never knew if it was me or not - but she confirmed it. There is such a peace that comes with knowing what is wrong!

So now treatment. Since we have already been trying to have a baby for a year and a half so she let us know that she was not going to try things multiple times. She will try it once, and if it doesn't work then it isn't going to work. She said that at a Fertility clinic they are equipped with tools that will allow us to know if it is working as you are taking it and know when to move on. So to start off she wants to find out what will allow me to ovulate. PCOS causes me not to. It is not curable, only treatable. This is why I always felt normal on Birth Control - it was treating my PCOS. So she is starting me off with a very high dose of Clomid. I have already taken 6 months worth of this drug, but not near this strength. She is going to do blood work and an ultrasound on a certain day of my cycle to see if this dose works ( By doing this I do not have to do temperature charts (blood work tells more), and ovulation predictor kits because they are not accurate with PCOS). If not, the next month we go 1 higher. There are 3 levels of high clomid she will try, if those do not work then we move to another drug. We will only do the highest of that drug. If that does not work we will try injectable hormones (which are very expensive). Hopefully by this point one will prove to be the 'magic dose' to make me ovulate. Now the big part - once we find the magic dose - then the next cycle she will give me the same dosage that worked and we will schedule intra-uterine insemination (IUI). This is basically where they take his sperm and inject it into me on a certain day once they get my egg to drop. (Don't forget that it isn't just me, but him with the problem as well so this is a way to treat both).

Now if none of the above options work - or if they work and we go to IUI and it doesn't work after 2-3 attempts, then we will be progressing to Invitro Fertilization (IVF). IVF actually has the highest success rate of any of the procedures - but also is extremly expensive (remember insurance doesn't cover anything!). She decided on the process for multiple reasons. Mainly she doesn't want my body to be put through more than it has to. She also knows though that we have been trying for a while and we are coming to her for answers. Her second reason was we are starting at the cheapest option since it is all out of pocket. If that works, then not only does my body not have to go through as much, but we will not be out as much.

She did warn us that as much as we have already endured all of the hormonal rollar coster through our clomid cycles that we BOTH need to get ready for the extreme rollar coster we are starting. She is giving me a massive amount of hormones and she said to expect extreme hot flashes, extreme moodiness, headaches, and be prepared to be emotional at the drop of the hat. Anything I have ever felt in the past cycles - get ready for it tripled. These are things I hate, but have dealt with and know it will be even harder this time.

So in the process of all of this we were able to get a lot of questions answered. Here are a few you may have:
1. Is there a chance of being 'octomom' or 'jon and kate plus 8' and her answer was absolutly no. She does an ultra sound before injecting the sperm and she can see how many eggs I produced before hand. That way if there is more than one - we know ahead of time.
2. Did being on Birth Control so long cause my body to not work right? Here answer was no - actually birth control helped me more than anything. When you have PCOS your uterus keeps filling and your lining doesn't shed (during your period) and BC helps me shed it. One of the main causes of Ovarian Cancer is to much pressure and weight on your uteran wall when you are not shedding the lining.
3. WHEN we have a baby - do we ever need to worry about Birth Control again? Yes - as I said above, it is actually HEALTHY for me to be on. In PCOS patients basically the brain is not talking to the ovaries. So Birth Control acts as the messenger ( so does clomid - which is why it helps fertility).
4. Will we be able to have a 2nd child naturally? No - as soon as we are ready for a second baby we will ditch the birth control and make an appointment with her. It is not impossible to get pregnant without her - but the example she used is a friend of hers has PCOS and it took her 12 years to get pregnant without help. Why wait and wonder and allow the PCOS to keep getting worse since I will be off Birth Control when the answers lie in medicine to help my brain and ovaries talk.
5. What caused me to have PCOS? I inherited it. There was nothing I could do to prevent myself from having it. I am not sure where - I haven't found the connection in my family - but she said it is there somewhere and most likely will be passed down to our kids.

Today was an excellent day. We have a diagnosis, we have a plan of action and we have hope - something we haven't had in a while. JR was asking her questions and getting involved - he even felt comfortable talking with her about everything. Usually he thinks of things and I research it or ask since it is my body - but even though it is my body it is our journey and he really feels that after today. She put us at ease - even though she never promised this would happen. I am so thankful that we live in a time where medicine has progressed and a place like this is an option!

So once again thank you dear friends for your prayers. Today would not have went how it went without God's merciful hand on us. I didn't sleep at all last night because of how nervous I was, but as soon as we sat down with her all my nerves magically disappeared! Please keep Dr. Craig lifted up in prayers. Not only on our behalf - but on the behalf of everyone she sees. We all go to her desperate - our last option - and that is a lot of pressure. Please keep JR in your prayers as he has to live with a woman that is fixing to be extremely hormonal! And please pray that this goes by fast - that treatment works in the beginning. Thank you all so much for being such wonderful friends. I had my phone turned off this morning because we were preparing for the appointment and getting all the paperwork ready and when I turned it on afterwards my phone was flooded with text messages from you guys checking on us. JR just smiled and said how great it was to have so many people that care. We cannot thank you enough for your love and support!

J&M

P.S. - Here is a video of Dr. Craig working on a 'special' case! Click HERE

Almost time...

Well today we dedicated the day to getting ready for fertility. We sat down and did all the paperwork together - there were lots and lots of pages to fill out. We had to contact our family and get medical history because we have to bring that as well. So after we finally completed all of that we decided we needed to book a hotel room. We are going up on Monday night after work since our appointment is at 9AM on Tuesday morning. We will have to be there before 8:30 to fill out more paperwork so we thought it would be best to go up the night before so we aren't driving really early in the morning (when we both don't function well!!!). We got on priceline and got a really nice hotel for really cheap - so that will be a fun treat to have a nice hotel room. I think part of me really wants to treat each appointment as a treat in some way so we look forward to it instead of dreading it. Even if we don't stay the night I want to plan to eat somewhere nice or plan to go somewhere fun during the trip. I know it probably won't always be possible, but I want to make this as enjoyable as we can. I don't want to dread every bit of it!

Even though we talk about this subject often, we sat down today and really went through a lot of the options that they encourage you to decide before you start the process. It is so weird planning things that most people will never have to plan. They aren't conversations that you expect to have with a spouse. I will say though that it is one of the most intimate conversations we have ever had. It is fun planning for our future and expressing our ideas together. This is an extremely emotional experience. It is one that you have to be 100 percent involved in or you cannot be involved at all. We cannot just give some of ourselves to this process. We have to be willing to give everything.

Justin and I have grow together tremendously through all of this. It has been the biggest blessing that has come from this. We were already pretty joined at the hip before - but this has really opened up different areas of our lives and allowed us to really come together to start our family.

Next week starts a new game. Everything changes next week. We are not on our time or on our work's time - we are on fertility time. Whenever the doctor and our bodies require us to be at appointments or take medicines or whatever - we have to do it. We cannot pick and chose when we do things - we have to do it all or we might as well not do any. That is scary but it is what we have to do and we are ready. We know it will be exhausting on us both, hard on my body and hard on both of us emotionally. Justin knows how important his role is and how much I will need him to be encouraging and understanding as I undergo so many hormones. I know how important it is to make sure even on the hard days I still have to follow all of her rules and restrictions and take whatever medicines she tells me or take as many shots as needed. We know the importance. We are hoping that we only have to undergo everything once. We are praying hard that it works the first round. But if it doesn't, we are praying for patience and understanding to keep going and try it as many times as needed and advance to more complex treatments if need.

So please keep us in your prayers. We want a baby very bad - but we want it to be God's plan. We love you guys so much and appreciate your support and prayers more than we can express!

J&M

Prayer Warriors

Friends,
In 4 weeks we start another leg of our journey. We have our appointment with Dr. Craig on August 3rd which is 1 year, 5 months and 3 days since we started trying to have a baby. We had a very relaxing month of June and are grateful we also have the month of July to clear our heads to prepare for this journey, but we are very ready to get started. We are ready to start the process that may be long and hard – we are just ready to be doing something so that we are working toward our dream.

We need your help more now than ever. We need God to surround us and guide as we go through this process. We do not know what to expect. We do not know how hard this will be on my body or how hard emotionally it will be on us. We also do not know how hard it will be financially – even though when it comes to a baby money isn’t an issue, if the process doesn’t work the first time we will have to wait and pay it off before we start it again (because insurance doesn’t cover any of it). Basically this is new territory and we are scared. We need our friends to surround us in prayer. We need to be as prepared as possible as we start this and as we go through this and the only way to be prepared to be covered by God’s grace and loving arms.

"…The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" (James 5:16).

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7).

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" (Romans 8:26).

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him" (1 John 5:14-15).

Even though I believe God knows what we need more than us, I also believe God likes us to be specific in our prayers. It makes it more personal and intimate. Here are some specific things I will ask you to please pray for:

1. Patience. One of the hardest parts of all of this is how long everything takes. I struggle with patience a lot, but even more during this. I hate that there is so much ‘wait’ time because it is hard to stay focused on everything else in our lives. Which leads to #2…

2. Not being consumed. The past month I have been able to really turn my mind off so that I do not think about fertility constantly. When I have to take my temp every morning and pills at certain times during the day it really makes it hard to not constantly think about it. I feel like life HAS to revolve around it because of how time sensitive everything is. When all I can do is think about it though it makes life so hard because we still have lots going on around us. I struggle with this of course much more than Justin but it is hard on him too having to deal with me. :)

3. Safety. We will now be traveling to OKC who knows how many times a month. We were traveling to Lawton before. We know the way inside and out to OKC but there are always chances of accidents.

4. Understanding. We do not know what will be required of us so there is no way to prepare others for it. We try to be considerate of the ones we work with and give plenty of notice when we will be gone but that may not be possible as much during this. Since things are time sensitive, I know that there may be days when we have to go to OKC without much notice. We have prepared our supervisors of this but that is so hard to do when we do not normally function like this. We do not want to put others out in this process.

5. Peace. We believe that god has lead us to this place. We do believe we are following him by getting to this step. I do believe in the peace that passes understanding though and we will need to feel that at each stage of the process. We do not want to go anywhere or do anything that is not led by God.

6. Progress. I feel like after 16 months we are still in the same boat we were in then. I know we have made progress because of things we have ruled out, but we need to feel a little bit of success. Even if it isn’t in the way we are hoping - a baby – we need to feel like we are not just spinning our wheels. We want to know what is wrong and what can we do to correct it. We need to see a light at the end of this tunnel.

7. For our hearts to be softened. No one knows what is going to come of this journey. We are not prepared nor do we want to be prepared for worse case situations. But we do want our hearts to be softened so that whatever God chooses for our life, we are accepting and ready for. We don’t want to lose the ‘fight’ in us because that is something we need to continue this journey, but we do want God to mend our hearts to His will because that is the only thing that is perfect.

We love each of you so much and are so appreciative that you have been part of this journey thus far. We could not keep going without support from loved ones. Hearing or reading your encouraging words and feeling the prayers you have said on our behalf have changed our lives. We have been able to go back and read words you have said to us or comments you have left and we are encouraged all over again just as we were when we first received it. God is using each of you for greatness and we are forever grateful for the love He has shown us through friends like you!

Much Love,
J & M