Infertility...

I know that most of my post about infertility are depressing and angry but I wanted to share some feelings and upcoming things that are allowing me to feel a little more hope and just embrace my trial and look forward to the future.

We met with our fertility doctor (RE) back in July and even though the money aspect is terrifying, I felt hope and peace while talking about our options. We were given a 75 percent chance with the first IVF round and a 98 percent every cycle after that, unless there are unforeseen problems.  Our doctor's office is one of the most affordable for IVF in the state, which is great but it is still expensive. So we met with the financial advisor at the doctor's office and were given a few options for how to pay, since our insurance covers absolutely nothing.  I don't want to go into detail right now but I will one of these days. After talking it over, here are the choices Adam and I are left with in no particular order:

1- Financing- The doctor's office offers financing for our IVF. They offer low interest rates and we shouldn't have a problem to get approved. The reservation I have is I feel a little funny "paying off" our baby for the next 5 years, especially since this won't include all of the doctor bills( that hopefully insurance will help with)

2- Paying for multiple cycles upfront. This one is a little harder to explain. Basically we pay for 4 cycles up front, 2-Fresh cycles, 2-Frozen cycles. Because we are paying upfront we get about a 40 percent discount. This plan is kind of like an insurance plan. If we do all 4 cycles and do not leave the hospital with a baby in our arms we get 50 percent of our money back. We can do this plan along with financing. The only downfall is that if we get pregnant on the first cycle and it ends with a baby we do not get to use the other 3 cycles on a future date. But a lot of times it takes a time or two for IVF to work, so we will more than likely go with this option along with figuring out how to pay for it. The only down-fall to this option is that it only covers IVF. It does not cover meds, anesthesia, or the freezing of our eggs for future uses.

3- Save, Save, SAVE! We also have the option to try and save for all of this on our own. We are definitely putting a plan into action to try and save what we can, but it might take a while and I can feel my eggs drying up ;-)

4- Fundraising. This one has been a hard one for me. It is not because I am too proud to accept help. The biggest thing that I am struggling with for fundraising is thinking that I am burdening someone else with my trial for this life. I never want anyone to feel like they HAVE to help me. I know everyone has trials in this life and this one just happens to be ours and I don't want it to be a weight on anyone else. I wish that we had the money to pay for IVF out of our own pocket, but to be honest we don't at this time. With the encouragement from some our friends we are working on a few fundraising ideas that I want to share here. I can't express the gratitude and out-pouring of love and concern we have experienced from friends and family so far. So many people willing to help anyway they can. It brings me to tears almost daily. We have the best support team.

First, if any of you follow me on Facebook, we are building a team for a 5k at the end of August. This 5k is put on by Footsteps for Fertility. They will be doing a drawing at the end of the 5K for two free rounds of IVF and for as many $5,000 grants as possible It works like a raffle, every time someone signs up under our team name we get another ticket entered into the drawing for IVF or a grant. You can register to walk/run or sleep in for the 5K. The sleep-in option just means that you are registered under our team but you do not have to show up to the event.

Details:

Date: August 30th
Time: 8:00 am- 10:00 am
Place: Liberty Park
Team Name: 2 Nicholes for a Baby
Register here: http://www.active.com/salt-lake-city-ut/running/races/footsteps-for-fertility-5k-slc-2014
$5 off registration with code: UFC5OFF

If you would like to join our team to try and increase our odds we would be forever indebted to you. If you would like to share this with others who might like to join our team please spread the word. If you cannot join our team at this time, please don't feel bad, just wish us luck and keep us in your prayers and that will be more than enough.

At this time we are working with some of our friends to set up a puzzle campaign to try and raise money as well. If you don't know what a puzzle campaign is I will have more details coming in the future. We got the idea from some friends and other couples saving for adoption or IVF.

I am sorry this post is so long. I will go into more detail on our procedures and costs as soon as I have a grasp on it all.

I am excited, terrified and hopeful. Wish us luck!

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.

Infertility awareness

Today kicks off infertility awareness week again. I know that I have not updated in over six months and I plan on doing so,eventually, but I can't let this week pass by without hopefully raising awareness by sharing some of my feelings or thoughts about this infertility stuff. I understand if everyone is sick of reading about my infertility so feel free to skip over these posts, I promise you won't hurt my feelings. But if you know someone who has questions or needs some support, send them my way, I'm mostly an open book and I can at least put them in touch with some of my wonderful doctors. 

Infertility awareness week 2014 

Life lately

This pictures has nothing to do with the post except that I am rocking a double chin, hello infertility drugs! I am really trying to lose the last 25 pounds but it is not going so well.  But Adam looks handsome as always. This was taken when we attended the Sunday morning session of General Conference.

Life has been a little crazy. I have not updated things here in a while.

Let's start with May. Adam was called as second counselor in the Bishopric for our ward. It was a whirlwind of crazy and I think we are finally getting used to things. He is doing a great job. We also celebrated his 29th birthday. Next year....30 folks!

June. Girl's Camp! It was a fantastic camp this year and we had a pretty good sized group. We went from 10 my first year to almost 20 for my third year. Camp was held up at Heber Valley Girl's Camp. Cabins, showers and running water, yep we are girls! I also celebrated my golden birthday on the 28th, which happened to be the day we returned from camp. So we didn't do anything exciting but I was happy to be home with my hubby.

July. Fireworks, barbecues and late summer nights under the stars. I think there most be a reason I love July so much!

August. Adam and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. I can't believe we have been married that long, I am old. Youth Conference was this month. It was exhausting but a great last hurrah with my YW. It was also really nice to have the hubby join the fun.

September. I was release as YW president at the beginning of September. I guess I can't have that big of a calling with Adam in the Bishopric. It was definitely bittersweet and I am still trying to make the adjustment. I love those girls so much but I know that they will be in good hands.

October. I love October! Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday.
- Candy                                                   
- Dressing up as someone else               
- Haunted Houses
- Halloween movies
- Decorating (I need to get this done) How are we half way through October and I don't have any decorations up?

Such a boring post but that is where we are at in life right now. I am just trying to get back in the mode of having free nights during the week to do what ever I want. Lately it has consisted of reading books, doing laundry, cleaning the house and working on my craft room.

Catch some Zzzz's

Would you look at this bed? Does this not make you want to just crawl in and take a long nap?

 or how about this one....

or this one..........

SLEEP!

Sleep makes me VERY happy! I went to bed last night at 10:00 like an old lady and now today....

I. am. exhausted! So for today Sleep will make me happy. Is it weird if I go to bed at 7:30 tonight?

 

              I would love for this to be today

 

but alas work is calling. If you are looking to do something with me tonight you are welcome to come over in your pajamas because I will be in mine.

Here's to catching some Zzzzz's tonight!

 

 

Happy

Happiness.

Isn't that what we are all searching for?

Why aren't we happy?

Or why, when we are happy is it only for a brief glimpse and then we are back to where we started?

I know many people are happy and find joy in their daily life, but I have noticed that for most it is something we have to work so hard for, that we have to push ourselves just to find that small sliver that truly makes us happy.

I don't want to just try to find happiness anymore. I want to BE happy.

I am going to do my very best to find happiness and joy in my everyday journey. Is it going to hard? Of course! But I know it will make a huge impact in my life and maybe those around me. Plus anything worth having in life takes work.

I have been stuck in a slump lately. I have been sad. I have been depressed and I have been in a dark spot for a really long time. I want out!  There are things that I am sad about that I know won't just go away but maybe if I concentrate on the great things in my life they won't be as debilitating.
I know some of the things that are causing me turmoil are not going to just going to magically disappear and some of it may never go away but I am going to try my best to figure out better ways to cope than what I have been doing.

I am going to share some of the things that truly bring me happiness on this here blog and maybe, just maybe being able to continually reflect on those things will help me find the joy and light I crave so badly. Anyone want to join me? Silly or serious what makes you happy? Where do you find your joy and contentment?

If you post it on your blog let me know. I would love to read it!