The month of May

I was going to try and update from my last update post but nothing really happened and too much time has passed so I will just recap the last few months.

Before I jump into the big event from May we had a few changes in our church life...
Back in April our ward split. It was a sad day and is still an adjustment. We were moved to the new ward which meant that Adam was released from the Bishopric. It was a bittersweet moment for us and we will miss many of our friends from our old ward. So to keep from getting too wordy we both got new callings in our ward. Adam is now a Sunday school teacher for the 16 and 17 year olds. He loves his calling and gets to teach along with one of our good friends. Maybe I am bias but he is amazing at teaching! I was called as second counselor in the Primary Presidency. It is a crazy calling but I think I am finally finding my way. We have 220 kids from age 0-11 in our ward, needless to say Sunday's are a blur!

Onto May.

Nothing really happened the first part of the month but on May 24th we celebrated Adam's big 3-0! It worked out so well that we were able to celebrate his big birthday on his actual birthday. We had a mustache bash with lots of family, some friends that happened to stop by, mustaches and homemade Cafe Rio.I don't think I have ever cooked so much food in my life, not even on Thanksgiving! It was a blast and we all ate way too much. I don't have a whole lot to say so I will just share some of our favorite pictures from the day.

 Our nephew wasn't too sure about that mustache

 Nothing better than mustache cake

Pretty sure those are supposed to be above your lip! My dad is crazy. 

Good thing he doesn't read my blog or he may disown me for this picture.

Adam's mom made him a beautiful blanket

This seems to be the only picture that I am not laughing in, oh that mustache.

Happy Birthday Adam!

Infertility part 5?

I am sure you are all waiting at the edge of your seat to know where we are at in these lovely fertility treatments. I want to try and catch you up on our life someday but right now infertility IS our life. Some of this post won’t make sense or not mean anything to you but I feel like I need to be better about documenting this point in my life. I am going to tag any posts that deal with infertility so that you can choose to read them or not, don't worry I won't be offended. 

This one is a long one....

After 7 failed cycles of 50mg Clomid, HCG and Progesterone we now have to move on. Our options were IUI (artificial insemination) or  IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization). If you want to know more I have explanations linked.

We took about a year off from treatments to save money, decide what treatment to start with and just get emotionally ready.

We met with my doctor on April 15^th to move on to our next treatments. We decided that we wanted to try a few IUIs before we possibly make the jump to IVF, mostly because the cost difference is crazy! Our doctor told us she would let us try 3 IUIs before she would have us move on to IVF. She felt that if it didn't work after 3 IUIs then she would just be wasting our money and would rather have us save up for IVF.

At our appointment we happened to be on the right cycle day so she gave us the green light to go ahead and start treatments that day! I was so excited, calm and just happy that everything seemed to be finally falling into place. I felt like this was our shot and it was our turn to finally be parents. I was put on 5mg Femara, 2 shots of Bravelle (FSH), HCG to trigger ovulation and that would be followed by an IUI.

The first IUI everything looked great! The medication worked, my body responded just how it should and Adam’s numbers looked great. I had only one good follicle that was not ready to ovulate and one that needed a little more time so I was given one more shot of Bravelle to help before our IUI.(It only takes one good follicle, but you have a better chance with multiple)

That two week wait was the longest wait yet! Unfortunately I started spotting the Friday before our test (of course it had to be on the same day as my sister in law's gender reveal party, so I probably wasn't much fun) and on Mother’s Day my period started, talk about cruel irony. First IUI was NEGATIVE.

 We decided to try and not let that get our hopes down because we still felt like this was the treatment we needed to be doing. We pressed on…

Second IUI in May went great again, but once more……NEGATIVE.

I started to feel discouraged but we knew we had one more shot, so on to IUI #3 we went. Everything was perfect once again. We left after our IUI for Vegas to get away and relax for a few days. Four days after my 29^th birthday we received the results of our last and final IUI. How I wish I could tell you that it was good news but again our results were NEGATIVE.

We are devastated, angry, heart-broken and just so lost. My faith is shaken, my hope is gone and I don’t know what to do now.

We both felt so great about starting our IUIs and that this was the treatment that we needed in order to get a baby here to start our family, only to be met with disappointment.

I wanted to post about our lives and our infertility so many times before now and I have so many drafts sitting there waiting to be published. I honestly thought that if I didn’t talk about it we would magically get pregnant and that I wouldn’t jinx us anymore, obviously that did not work.

Now we are left with the options of IVF, adoption, or to accept the fact that we will never have children. We are meeting with the doctor tomorrow to talk about IVF. It is going to cost us about $12,000 a try.  We are not opposed to adoption but right now we are not to that point and now that LDSFS does not do adoption the cost will be outrageous.  

So emotionally and financially I am feeling like it is time for us to accept the fact that we will not be parents in this life time, even though my Patriarchal Blessing specifically talks about me being able to create bodies for the spirits that will come into our home. I am trying to stay hopeful and hold onto my faith but after 5 years, 1 miscarriage, 2 chemical pregnancies, lots of money, hormones, heartache and disappointment there isn't much else left to hold onto. Luckily I have honed my skills of looking and seeming happy when I am broken inside. I am not as strong as people seem to think.

Sorry for the depressing post but I am learning that infertility is devastating disease, yes it is a disease.

To all of you who have children please hug them a little tighter for me and don’t take them for granted. For those of you expecting children, please know that I am happy and excited for you but some days it is harder for me to show, but I truly am happy that you are able to have children without problems and I will love your children as much as I love you. I plan to have an update on our past few months and hopefully a better outlook on life in general, but the news of our last failed IUI is still fresh on my mind so please forgive me.