Update and surprise!

It has been a while since I updated. I want to continue this blog now that happy things are going on!!!

Well first off we did get released from our fertility specialist early on in July. That was for sure bitter sweet. We love those people so much and it is hard to leave the security of their care.
When we came back to my regular OBGYN we found out that she is retiring in December. Since I am due in January she had to refer me to another doctor. That was nerve racking because I wanted the security of my doctor I have had for so long.
She referred me to Dr. Carol Lennon who is the high risk specialist at MMH(Lawton OBGYN). I am not high risk necessarily, everything is going smooth so far but with our history it is nice knowing we are in her care.

Today was our first appointment meeting her. We could tell immediately she was a high risk specialist because of how much information she wanted!!! After a good appointment meeting and talking with her (and hearing the heartbeat) she sent us over to do some testing. I wasn't planning on doing the Gestational Diabetes test today - that is usually done later on - but since our infertility came from my PCOS and PCOS patients are at the highest risk for it she wanted to know immediately if that is something we are facing. We will know the result of that in about a week.

We did get to find out a secret today! We found out the sex of our baby. So now instead of Baby Smith we can all call it.....
Baby BOY Smith!!!
We are PUMPED that it is a boy and cannot wait to start buying things and preparing for his arrival. Before you ask if we have a name I do want to be up front with everyone and tell you that Justin and I have decided that we want to keep that between us until his birth. It will add a little surprise factor and give us time to nail down exactly what we want. We are not trying to be 'little turkeys' by keeping this between us, just is a decision we made a long time ago.

So now what you really want - pictures!
Here is his handsome profile.

Here is him showing us that he is for sure a Boy!

And here are his cute little feet!




We are sooooo excited today. I think we have been so reserved and nervous that we have not felt the full excitement that this baby has brought. Today seeing him and knowing it is him has really helped us get a little more brave with our excitement and see how real this is. I cannot believe we are at this point. We are blessed beyond words. God is good!

J&M

Our News

This is the napkin that we used at out 4th of July family cookout to announce our news. I know you will be surprised by the fact that I am 11 weeks pregnant and wondering what in the world happened since I last posted. Here is the story.

We secretly started back doing a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET cycle) at the start of April. This required me to wear 4 estrogen patches a day and also take a shot that suppressed my body. We had to go up for a few appointments, but this process was so much different. The estrogen patches were SUPER strong and messed with my hormones a lot, but just not having to live in the city and go through the pain of growing all those eggs was a relief.

On May 2nd they decided my body was ready to go so we started some different shots (That big progesterone one) and we scheduled the transfer for May 9th. They defrosted 2 embryos and thankfully God allowed them both to make it through the freeze. This transfer only took about 10 minutes. Without that polyp it was the easiest procedure ever. We were out of there and on our way home quick. I took the next few days off and was on bed rest to let my body relax and allow them a chance to attach themselves.

One week later on May 16th the most surreal thing happened to us. We bought a pregnancy test and were both there as it came back a very strong pregnant line. We also bought a digital test and it came back quickly saying pregnant. We have seen lots of negative tests over the past few years so seeing a positive was weird for us. It was hard to believe. That night we just cried in awe of the blessing. We knew we had a long road ahead so we had to be careful being too excited but we rejoiced.

On May 18th I had blood drawn and my HCG level came back at a 201.9. They want it to be between 50-100 so they told us that is could be twins but either way that is a good strong level to start with. Two days later I had it drawn again and it more than doubled which is what it is supposed to do.

We had our first ultrasound appointment on June 9th. We found out that I am carrying 1 little baby. This was bitter sweet because that means 1 of our embryos didn’t make it. We got to hear a very strong heartbeat and it was developing perfect. June 9th brought our rate of miscarriage down to less than 10 percent.

On June 23rd we got to hear the heartbeat again. It had grown exactly as it should and she even used the words everything is looking perfect. I told her we have never heard her say that referring to my body! We go to see its little arms and legs wiggling around – very neat. This time by hearing it our chance of miscarriage then dropped to less than 3 percent.

We have been doing shots since the start of April. We started the big progesterone shots at the start of May along with wearing 4 estrogen patches a day since mid-April. As of June 29th, I got to stop both of those. I cannot tell you how excited I am to be done with those. They were one of my biggest struggles.

I have been very sick. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I am shooting so much medicine into my body along with the pregnancy hormones. She gave me some things to help and it has been a day by day (or hour by hour) thing. Since finding out I’m pregnant I have lost 12 pounds because of the sickness. It has been the hardest thing to get through and it made doing shots and patches even harder because it just kept the sickness going.

I have also lived in a bubble since May 9th. Until my first ultrasound I was on high alert. Basically I could go to work, but needed to come home and rest when I got finished. I had to limit how active I was each day to help keep this baby. That was really hard when no one knew. I had feelings of a prisoner in my home a few times especially as I was sick, but it was part of it and I knew it was worth it. We had one miscarriage scare that thankfully turned out good. It actually ended up keeping us more guarded because you just never know what is going to happen.
We are so excited and blessed to be posting this news. We have wanted to share since the day we got our positive test but knew that for our sake and for your sake we needed to wait. Last time was so hard for us and for others that we wanted to spare the pain if it didn’t work. When you feel as much joy as we have been feeling it hard not to shout it off the rooftop, but we are grateful that we can come to you and tell you at this point knowing that we are in a good spot in our pregnancy. Things could still happen of course, God is in control, but we have a peace to share. Also, I probably won’t be able to hide it too much longer! :)

Thank you for prayers. I hope you have been encouraged somehow through this journey. Each of your kind words, understanding hearts and prayers have lifted us up so much. We hope we are able to pass that on to others who are struggling through journeys that they do not understand. God is strong when we are weak and He has taught us more about Him in the past 2 and a half years then I ever thought was possible. As hard as it has been, it is hard to be anything but grateful for this journey and for the lessons we have learned. Justin and I have grown closer than I ever thought two people could be during these struggles and he is my reminder that God has the best things in store for my life. The best gift I could ever give my child is him as their daddy. He already is amazing and is my biggest blessing from God.

To God be all the glory!

J&M

Surgery time

Hey everyone! Tomorrow (3/15) I have my cervical polyp removal surgery. I had the pre-op appointment on Monday and found out that it will not just be light anesthesia, but the full general anesthesia (tube down throat and all). This makes me a little more nervous than I already am, but I know it will be ok. I will be down for the rest of the week so today basically marks my last day of spring break. That stinks for all of the lazy/fun reasons of a break I am going to miss, but am so grateful that I am not having to miss multiple days of work for this surgery!
Please keep me, Justin and Dr. Craig in your prayers tomorrow. She is not only going to remove the polyp but is going to go into my uterus and just triple check that everything is ok there. Justin - the hospital is referring to him as my 'responsible party' - will be taking good care of me. He is always so wonderful when I am sick so I know I will be in great hands!
Thank you for the prayers!

Recovering

I know that by sharing this journey it has made everyone that follows this blog interested in what is happening and what is going to happen in the future. Sometimes sharing has made it hard but we really feel like if God is going to use our journey to help others, the first step is for us to share. This is a very hard post to write.

The last post I made was about our crazy back and forth schedule during the IVF process. So I think it would be best for me to pick up where I left off.

After my last post we had 4 more days of appointments and then the egg retrieval happened on Saturday the 5th. This process involves me being put under anesthesia and they go into my ovaries with a needle and poke each follicle (remember I had almost 20 in each side) and get the egg out of the follicle. This only took about 45 minutes and I woke up in a pretty good amount of pain. Most women have about 10-15 eggs retrieved TOPS, but I had 39 which is because of my age and the fact that I have PCOS (I asked if I broke the record but I didn’t!). Being that many eggs kept my chances of Ovarian Hyper stimulation up because there is fluid from each follicle that is still in the ovaries. Basically after the procedure I had to ‘recover’ for about an hour until they could get the pain under control and then they released me. I got in the car, knocked out and woke up when he told me we were home. We had planned on staying up there, but I wanted to be in my own bed when I felt bad so he made that happen. He said on the way home every bump he hit I would wake up and say ouch. I don’t remember much.

The next few days were hard. I felt like I had literally been cut open in my lower tummy. I could not walk standing straight up because of how bad it hurt (my enlarged ovaries). I had to urinate every 15 minutes and it drove me crazy. We did figure out later that the reason for that was because my ovaries were so large that they were pressing on my bladder and I was getting rid of all of the fluid from the IV.
They call you with an update of your eggs (now embryos) daily. By Sunday, just a day after the procedure, we had 21 that had been fertilized. We knew all 39 weren’t mature enough to fertilize, but they remove them so that you don’t get really sick. Leaving them would have caused me to overstimulated more which would have required a hospital stay. They were the eggs that weren’t meant to make it.

I attempted work on Monday and actually made it all day. I was in so much pain from pushing myself that if I could change something that is one of the things I would change. I felt better mentally because I got some things off my pending to do list but I am not sure it was the best time to do that. We got a call on Monday the 7th saying that they wanted to do the transfer on Tuesday the 8th. Basically this is a procedure that we had a practice run of back in December and it takes about 10 minutes to put the eggs back in. I am not under any anesthesia, it isn’t a big deal. Or it least it wasn’t then.

Of course we break the mold on everything so the transfer wasn’t what we expected. Our practice run had gone smooth a few weeks earlier, but I had since had a polyp grow on my cervix. This was from the fertility meds that we took during the process. Not everyone develops these from the meds, but my levels would go down than triple the next day because my body was being hard headed. The problem was that it wasn’t just a small polyp that many women get, it was huge and it took them about 55 minutes to do the 10 minute procedure. Basically they had to get through the polyp because it was blocking the entrance to my uterus. After what I now call the most traumatic/painful part of the process was done, Justin and I got to watch as 2 beautiful embryos were placed in me. It was emotional and surreal. Our 2 best babies had been placed in me, now it was my turn to take care of them.

Now the wait began. I did have to have a Progesterone shot every night to help my uterine lining. If you want to see a BIG needle, go to youtube and type in PIO (Progesterone in Oil) shot. Knowing that it was helping keep those2 embryos in me though made the pain ok. Unfortunately this shot gave you all the normal feelings of a pregnant woman. It is the actual hormone that makes you feel all of those feelings and I was shooting a good amount into me. That really messes with your head!

On Tuesday the 15th, 1 week after the transfer I started to spot. Not much, but enough to have me call my nurse because I was on edge about everything abnormal. They were not concerned since it was just a little bit of blood and said it is actually normal. It continued to be a small amount until I woke up in the middle of the night Wednesday night/Thursday morning and at this point it was a lot of fresh blood. I let Thursday play out some to see if it would slow down but I sent my nurse an e-mail. After a meeting at 1:00 I got a call asking me to go ahead and come up. We were not supposed to do a pregnancy test until Monday but they wanted to do that and check my progesterone levels. They upped my progesterone that night.

So Friday the 18th we had an appointment that morning. All they did was take blood. They did not do an exam in case it was my polyp bleeding, they didn’t want to make it bleed more. Basically if it was what we feared it was, there was nothing that can be done. We came back home and waited on the call. Usually if my nurse calls me, she calls me as soon as they get results, but if my doctor wants to talk to me it usually takes a little longer. It was taking a little longer. It really isn’t abnormal for Dr. Craig to call me because she feels very connected to us and has been the one to call us multiple times, but I wanted my nurse to call so that I knew it was no big deal. I got the call and it was Dr. Craig on the phone. I told her I knew it was a bad thing if she was calling, and she said she would have grabbed our folder either way but yes it wasn’t good. It didn’t work. She cried with me on the phone for about 15 minutes as we just processed. She explained what the next step would be when we are ready.

So that is where we are at. I know your question after all of this is what is the next step? Well first I have to have surgery to remove the polyp. She wants it gone before we do another transfer. The polyp doesn’t affect anything pregnancy related, just causes pain when doing the transfer procedure. It is too large to remove in office so it is one we have to schedule a surgery day where they put me under anesthesia.

Thankfully we had 6 embryos (other than the ones they put in me) that were good quality (13 of them stopped growing, which is normal). We ‘froze’ those 6 so that they can be used at a later date. Having those frozen means we do not have to go through all of the IVF again. Basically I will have to take some shots, but nothing like before, and only go up there a handful of times. Once they think my body is in the place it can handle it, they transfer a few of the frozen embryos into me.

My question is just like yours – why in the world would we think it would work next time. Her reply was simple and practical. Basically there is no “reason” that it didn’t work, she cannot find anything wrong other than the ovulation in me and we got over that using the egg retrieval. She said that sometimes though, our body is so unnaturally hormonal from the IVF procedure that our bodies reject the eggs. She said that when patients with my history go through a frozen cycle (FET) that they have very good results because their body is more in the ‘normal’ state. If you know me, you know I am a realist, and this was the only thing that has comforted me.

My body is going back to the “Pre-IVF” form. My ovaries had gotten SOOOOO large that it was miserable. In the past week and a half I have lost 8 pounds. It was pure water weight from all of the fluid in my ovaries. I am finally being able to sleep more than an hour at a time without having to get up to use the restroom. I guess these are both good things to be thankful for.

So that is the story. To say that Justin and I are sad is an understatement. We are devastated. We believe life starts at conception and conception started the day of the egg retrieval. These babies were very real and we very much feel like we lost 2 children. Our doctor gave us a picture of them on the day of the transfer and it was so crazy how instantly attached we felt. Of course I feel an extra burden because it was my body that rejected them. Every day it is a struggle to not be an emotional wreck. I think we are also both in shock. That was the hardest 6 weeks we have had in our entire life. We felt like we were tested in every way possible. We just cannot believe it didn’t work. We always had IVF in our back pocket, knowing if everything else failed, that would work. We were wrong and it hurts.

We will be ok. We are fighters and we are believers that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. We don’t think we are as strong as He thinks we are though. Right now we are just trying to make it day by day. That is all we really know how to do. There is no rule book on what to do in these situations. We just have to trust God and allow him to comfort us. As the song says, sometimes he calms the storms but other times he calms his child. Keep us in your prayers.

J&M

Home Sick

We have been gone and I know a lot of you are wondering what in the world is going on and why I have been MIA. We have been gone lots more than we planned. Well here was our agenda last week (we didn't know what the next day held until it came).
Sunday night - Drove to OKC
Monday morning appt - 7:30 AM. We then drove home and worked half a day. Got a call that they needed us back Tuesday so we drove back up after work Monday to sleep.
Tuesday morning appt- 7:30. We then drove home and worked half a day. Got a call that they needed us back thursday - so we got to sleep at HOME.
Wednesday - worked all day then left that evening to sleep in OKC
Thursday morning - appt -7:30. We then drove home and worked half a day. Got a call they needed us back Friday so we drove up that night to sleep.
Friday morning - appt 7:30. We then drove home to work half a day. We got a call they needed us Saturday. We wanted to sleep in our bed and we needed to do laundry so we stayed home.
Saturday morning - woke up at 4:30 to get ready and go to OKC. We had an appt at 8:00. We hung around town to hear the results - got a call they needed us again on Sunday so we stayed the night.
Sunday - had appt at 8AM. She said we have to be there Monday at 11AM so we came home to do more laundry and re-pack for colder weather.
Monday - We had out appt and she needed us again today (Tuesday). She stressed to us that we cannot miss an appt due to the weather because it could not only ruin the whole thing but it could be dangerous to my health. She uses each appt to determine my medicine dose for that evening.
So here we are in OKC again during a blizzard.
We didn't have an appt until noon today with the hopes that some of the roads would be cleared some by the road crews. We stayed a mile away from the clinic to ensure we could get there. She calls us this morning and she has a 22 mile drive but is coming JUST FOR US. So we head there. OKC has been bad - it snowed A LOT and was in a whiteout phase for a while. We got all the way to the clinic then got stuck - the road to her office hadn't been cleared yet and she had went another way and didn't know that. Dr. Craig was the only one that came - nurses couldn't make it - and when she called and heard we were stuck she walked 2 blocks in the cold from where she was parked and brought a shovel. She got down on her hands and knees helping us dig out snow so we could get out. After about 15 minutes in the bitter cold, she got in the driver side of my car as Justin pushed and they got us out. Justin ran beside the car because we didn't want to lose momentum and jumps in. We make it to the ER at OU medical because that was the clearest road. Since none of the people made it we had to go there to get my blood drawn. She took us to Labor and delivery and got us in a delivery suite and set up the ultrasound to check me since that was the only place where a good enough one was (still not near as nice as hers!). Yes you read all of that right - our million dollar doctor was digging snow out from around our car on her hands and knees. We were amazed!
So today to say that we bonded more than ever with her is an understatement. We got close today. We already liked her and respected her as a doctor before today, but in Justin's words "we now respect her as a human being.' She showed so much compassion and how much she genuinely cared. To be honest she could have canceled on us today and stayed safe. she could have cancelled our cycle and had us start again but she didn't.
As we left her she said - You have to get pregnant after this - what a great story to share with you child! What a great outlook. God took a crazy situation - I mean after last week we didn't think it could get any harder but that was before we realized it would be blizzard like weather - and made us be even more grateful.
Over the past week and a half we have had so many scares. At first my body overreacted to the medicine. It got to the point they were going to stop treatment so that I didn't overstimulate. She lowered my dose over a few days which helped. Then I stopped responding period. One of my nurses told me that she had never seen someone change that drastically. They almost had to stop treatment again because I just stopped working (Of course with my body this happens!). Then it snapped all back together. We were NOT prepared to have to spend this much time in OKC but all of that was unexpected. To be honest, as inconvenient as it has been to be up here, it has been very comforting to both of us knowing she is checking on me every day. I have felt pain that is very unusual pain and that can be scary when you have no clue what it means.
So that is where I have been friends - we feel like we have been on the run. We will have an appt in the morning (Wednesday) and at least one more day this week and then hopefully only 1 day up here next week. We are exhausted - physically and emotionally. My body is working harder than ever which makes you more tired normally - not adding in the fact of spending 5+ hours a day on the road most days.
God has allowed other people to show us so much compassion during this. First off our bosses, they have been so supported and taken the stress of work out of this equation. They realize how stressful it is already and they have really eased our worries about work and allowed us to focus on this. My mom has been a huge help with taking care of Emma (our dog). We have been able to call and say we are leaving again and not worry another thought about her being taken care of. So many of you guys have either sent a text or an e-mail reminding us that you are praying for us. What a blessing. Our doctors and nurses - we have seen them more than most people and they have really taken care of us. Our nurses are those people who seem like your best friend - they talk to you and spend the time you need to make you feel better and for you to understand what is going on. They are just good people - ones I will miss when this is over.
This process has been hard, and isn't even halfway over yet but God has taught us so much! He is amazing! My mom texted me last night and said "Maybe God sent the snow storm so that work was cancelled for a day and you didn't have to think about missing it!" Love the perspective!
This was a long post. I felt like I had just ran off and left everyone. We are alive and we are safe. We are having to take this day by day and are sooooooo grateful for the prayers from each of you. Love you all and hope to see you SOON! We miss work and we miss home!!!!

And we're off!

Well this is the week that things start getting hectic!!! We have to go to OKC on Thursday for our baseline appointment. This is where we pay and get started. We have already started the shot process (which are going great - Justin is getting to be a pro at being a doctor!) Over the next 6 weeks we will live in the city as much as we will live here. Some weeks it will be appointments at least every other day.
Please pray for safe travels. This is a lot of time on the road and I know it is going to be exhausting. Just pray that Justin stays alert as we travel and that I help by being a good co pilot!
Please pray for the doctors and nurses. We have tremendous faith in their knowledge and ability but they are very human. Pray for strength and knowledge as they do all of these procedures on my body.
Pray for God's will. This is hard because we all want God's will to be for this to work, but please pray that if this is not his timing that he makes us patient because His timing is best.
Knowing how detailed every step of this process is just reminds me how much God is involved in this. Without his blessing, this could never be something that worked for anyone. Every detailed step just reminds me how much of a miracle modern medicine can be and how it can be used for God's glory. He has brought us to this point for a reason. We have gained so much patience and a craving for His timing in our lives. We see how much of a blessing from God a child would be to our lives and without going through all of these trials I do not think we would have been able to see his hand intervene to help us. It has been a wonderful reminder that All good and perfect gifts come from Him - they have nothing to do with our ability.

This will be my last post most likely until this process is over. Because of the sensitive nature of this, please do not ask if we are pregnant in 8 weeks. Even if this process works, the first 10 weeks will be very critical since the miscarriage rate is so high. No matter what happens, I will let you all know our progress as we feel is best to share.
We love you each very much and appreciate all the love, support and prayers you give us!

Not for the weak at heart

We have gotten a lot of questions lately about what has been going on and I know I have been horrible about keeping this up so that everyone can follow us on this journey.
Really this month has consisted in lots of waiting. That is a good thing because it has been a busy month at work which has in turn made me not as impatient to start.
On the 23rd we had my pre-IVF workup. They did a practice transfer so they could measure how far they will need to go in and place the eggs when it is time. They also did a saline sonogram (OUCH!) to make sure I didn't have any abnormal cysts or growths that would cause a problem. If they would have found some I would have had to have surgery to remove them before we could proceed so that was a sigh of relief. They also did shot teaching. They basically showed us all the different shots I was going to have to give myself and they taught both Justin and I how to give them. It was overwhelming to say the least. All in all it was a good appointment. We had lots of time to talk to our IVF nurse and Dr. Craig. Our nurse has been wonderful - she even gave me her e-mail address so that I can e-mail her every time I have a question - bless her heart! I have never been around kinder people. They are so encouraging and patient with our nerves.
On January 3rd we have an appointment for Justin's pre-IVF workup. His is nothing like mine - not painful at all which isn't fair and I keep reminding him! ;) After that appointment we have finished all of our pre-workups.
We received the package of shots today. They do not sell this stuff at normal pharmacies so you have to order it through the clinic and they go through a fertility place. When we opened the box I think our hearts dropped seeing it all. This is what we opened:

This is everything

These are just the packs of needles

This is the refrigerated bag for some of it. It has to be kept cold.

This is a visual so you can tell the size of the needles.

We will start using those on January 9th. I will be taking shots for the next few months. We don't have another appointment until January 20th and we will know more about the next step then. The crazy thing about all of this is that even though we know the process, we will not know everything WE have to do until it gets here. Everyone is different and she said it is a day by day thing. She said it could be to the point of being there every other day for a little bit because she wants to make sure I am ok. There are so many dates on our crazy calendar that they gave us that are 'possible' appointment days. We will not know if we need to be there until at the most 24 hours before during some of the parts.

We are very stressed and nervous about what we are fixing to endure but we are so very hopeful and grateful to be starting this leg of the journey.

Keep us in your prayers my friends! Also say a special prayer that no injuries are caused by passing out from needles! :)

J & M