Our Journey

After my husband's blog entry, it got me thinking. A lot of you have reached out to us since then and said how helpful it was to read, it gave you more specifics on how to pray for us. The post that I am about to write, is not one to make you feel sorry for us. It is one that I hope will be beneficial to you and informative. Some of you have asked for more details in our experience because you yourself are going through struggles with infertility and might be considering IVF, so here is our story. (PS there is a more cheerful post below)

Our journey began on Saturday, August 11, 2007. We were celebrating the marriage of two of our best friends, John and Mary Louis. Paul kept asking me over and over, "hey did you check your email before you went to Jackson? I would reply, yes, but he never went on, then finally late Saturday evening, he told me to check my email. I pulled it up and it was one of the sweetest emails he had ever sent me, he said "I'm ready to start trying...". Anyone who knows me knows that I had been waiting to hear those words since the day we got married. I was so excited, he told me if I never wanted to take another pill again, it was ok. I decided that I would do what I thought was the smart thing and finish my pack of pills and then not start back. So I officially got off the pill September 1, 2007. We didn't jump right into what I call full blown trying in Sept and Oct, but by November it was on, I was ready, he was ready and it wasn't happening. We are now on our 29th cycle post birth control. I took 6 months of clomid, had my tubes flushed, 3 IUIs, endometriosis surgery (they did this b/c they were out of reason of why I had not conceived not b/c I was symptomatic, found stage 2 but Doc felt confident about next IUI), 1 failed IVF, 1 postponed IVF and that brings us to today of our 3rd attempt to do IVF. My first round with IVF, I think the doctors thought that since I was so young (according to them) and responded well to medication that we would do one round and be done. I took birth control for 4 weeks. In my 4th week I started injections of Lupron, period, continue Lupron, added stimulation medication (follistim and menopur), 10 days of stim, started antibiotics on stim day 9, triggered (hcg shot), we had retrieval, eggs were immature, started progesterone. Only one embryo came to be and it was implanted in mid June. Embryo did not take and thus we started all over. The doctors were dumbfounded on the poor response from my body. Felt like it was a one time thing and I was still going to conceive. This time for IVF, I was only on the pill fro two weeks. I did not take lupron and they increased my stimulating medicine a good deal. (We know the stim medicine worked better for me since in September my body had larger follicles then in June). I will start shots on Sunday so please be in prayer. Below are some pictures of what One day is like for me during this IVF cycle.

This is a picture of all the medicine I will take. Anything in a vial is just one day's dosage not a full month supply.

Where it all begins...Birth control and the calendar in the background
All four vials are used each day as a stim. Will add a second shot on day 4 of stim. Do this for roughly 10 days. Also antibiotics are taken about 4 or 5 days before egg retrieval.

HCG trigger shot used to release eggs for retrieval. Progesterone oil shot begins a few days after retrieval and will continue until pregnancy test and or until doc is comfortable with levels when pregnant. Also, progesterone supplement this is an insert (we will just leave it at that)
These are all the medication I will use. There is still a chance I might have to do another shot the entire pregnancy, but whatever I have to do to get pregnant I will do. I try to have a smile on my face most of the time, but I know I don't. I do know that God is bigger than I could ever imagine and that this time of suffering for Paul and I has only brought us closer to Him. We patiently wait (or try to) for Him to guide our lives and we pray that our attitudes and actions during this time are a reflection of Him. Proverbs 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.

I hope this helps! (PS don't forget about the post below...)