Trip Update

Sorry that I didn't update this while we were gone. I had big plans to, but I was just too tired to think about typing on my phone.

We left last Saturday and headed to Pigeon Forge. We had a great couple of days in the PF/Gatlinburg area. For those who have been to Branson…PF is about the same. They have a lot of the same shows, same attractions and even the same Professor Hackers mini golf. When the doctor was doing the transfer he asked about Pigeon Forge and I told him it was the same as Branson. He said "well I bet you don't have the Titanic". Yes, yes we do. Actually Branson has had it for years. I guess it was new attraction in PF for 2010. Kind of makes you wonder how authentic the stuff is in the museum if there is another on in Tennessee. Just something to ponder.

We also did some "hiking" in the Smoky's to see a waterfall. I'll post a separate story on that adventure at a later time.

On Tuesday we headed to Knoxville and Jay and I separated for a few hours. He stayed in the room and I went to the pool. As much as we love each other, we had spent a lot of one on one time together. As I walked out the door I told him not to contact me unless it was an emergency. He told me to do the same. A couple of hours later we joined back up and everything was fine. This trip was the most one on one time we've had together since before Cade was born, but we really did fine. Normally driving is what causes us to have fights and I felt like I remained pretty calm throughout the whole 28+ hour trip. We just have different definitions of what brake lights mean and what a safe following distance is.

Wednesday was the day of the big transfer. I'll also post about that separately. But I will say that the NEDC staff is wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I would rather not have to see them again in September, but they were great. Three embryos were transferred one was a good quality, one wasn't good and one was just thawing so we don't know it's full potential but it was looking good. Now we are just waiting until Friday to find out the results. It is going to be a long week.

Of course I'm analyzing every twinge, cramp, craving, etc that I'm experiencing so I'll probably drive myself crazy long before Friday. I keep reminding myself of two things on an almost hourly basis. 1. At this point most women don't even have a clue they are pregnant and 2. I'm on progesterone and estrace so either one of those are more than likely the cause of any symptoms I may feel. Most pregnancy symptoms don't start until 4-6 weeks.

After resting almost a full 24 hours after the transfer we headed home and broke the drive into two days. We did stop in Nashville for a couple of hours Thursday. We ate spaghetti and then walked a couple of blocks to the Ryman. I wish I had felt better because there were several things I would've like to have done in Nashville. We'll just have to plan a non-fertility related trip in the future.

We got home Friday and headed directly the Jay's parents to pick up Cade. We missed him a whole lot while we were gone. Judging by the way he sat in my lap yesterday, I think he missed us too. There is just nothing like coming home after a trip.

Doing Much Better...

I'm doing much, much better today than I was Wednesday.  I think part of it is the crazy hormones.  I did find out yesterday that everything seems to still be moving right along.  Tomorrow morning I get to start the Progestrone in Oil (PIO) shots.  Thankfully, we have a nurse friend who is going to instruct Jay in the art of giving an intramuscular shot.  It is Janella, who is our cake maker.  She is the one who made our wedding cake and all 8 of Cade's birthday cakes.  Now she will have the honor of giving me my first  PIO shot.  (don't worry, I won't link back to a post with pictures of my bruised behind one of these days) 

I've stumbled onto some blogs from 3 other people who will be going through the same thing, at the same time, in the same place.  I can tell by reading their blogs that we are in a totally different place than they are with this situation.  I'm going along on a need to know basis.  If they don't tell me right out or it's not on my protocal I don't know it and I probably haven't even thought about it.  I'm trying to take this one step at a time...1 to keep my sanity because looking at the whole thing is overwhelming and 2 to keep myself from being totally emotionally invested in this.  I've learned over the years to keep some emotional distance from all fertility related things.  I did have that lapse in February and now have a closet full of things to show for it.  I'm trying not to do that again.

But I did learn one thing today...someone adopting embryos in the same stage as ours (but is having them transferred on Tuesday) said that they will start thawing the embryos this weekend.  Hopefully the first two of ours they thaw will be the ones. 

Our plans are to leave tomorrow afternoon.  That is if we can get all of the laudry done, the house cleaned, the livestock moved and The Icebox brought back home.  We are going to spend sometime in Pigeon Forge and the Smoky (don't know how to spell that I've seen it about 3 different ways in my internet searches) Mountains.  We thought a couple of days of relaxation would be good for us me.  I tend to tense up like tightly wound spring when I travel.  Probably a few days of not traveling (ie: being in a car that Jay is driving) will be good for me.  Sorry Jay, but I still remember the cone incident from last summer.  I'm sure Lyle and Jania haven't forgotten it either. And yes, it really was that close...

I'll update as we go along next week.  Thanks for the all the prayers and comments over the last few months.  We appreciate it. 

Some Anxiety

I'm freaking out a little bit today. I'm scared that my body is not cooperating and tomorrow my ultrasound is not going to go well. I'm terrified that I've made it this far but tomorrow it's all going to end. I've read and re- read and then read again the protocol sheet that the clinic sent me. I've counted my days again to make sure I stopped the Lupron on the right day. I've quadruple checked the Estrace dosage I've been taking.

I already have a tendency to be OCD and then when you add on the stress, medication and hormones you can imagine what it's doing to me. One minute I feel ok that tomorrow will turn out fine then 30 seconds later I'm convinced it will be over. Then I looked ahead to the blood test date. If I do make it through tomorrow how will I handle that day. Then that makes me even more nervous. Then I think why did I agree to do this? Why did I willingly bring all of these pregnancy/infertility feelings back to the surface when I had managed to bury them quite nicely years ago. WHY WHY WHY?? Deep breath, deep breath….

Then we got an e-mail about having our profile shown in a situation for a baby due this fall. What do we do??? Do we show it? Not show it? It would be an at risk placement which means it's a 60 day wait and see period. Normally that never bothers me, I just automatically send a response back to show us. Today the thought of 60 days scares me. 60 DAYS!!! That's a long time to not know what's going to happen. But of course we'd have to be picked first for it to even matter.

I guess this is all coming down to the fact that I want another baby but I'm so terrified of putting my heart out there again for it. And there's probably some medication playing into these feelings too. I'll be glad when tomorrow is over!

Skyler

Skyler Sanders passed away yesterday afternoon.  Please keep his parents, Ryan and Melissa, and his sister Macy in your prayers.  He was a sweet boy who will be greatly missed.

Baseball

Since The Icebox was closed last night I had some time to download some videos.  I also attempted to put a few on the blog.  Here are a couple from baseball.  The first one is Cade running from 1st to 3rd base.  The last one shows him doing a good bellyflop at home.  I gave up keeping my car clean during baseball.  All of that red dirt from his unifrom kept getting on my black seats.

Happy Father's Day

These were the only videos I took on Father's Day.  It shows that a boy is never too young or too old to enjoy a good armpit fart.  That's my dad's voice you can hear in the background.  It's also a good sample of what Cade and Avery are like together.  They fight like they are siblings. 

And I Forgot To Say…

I needed to add this to the last post.

Jay has been in charge of giving me my Lupron shots. Last night we realized we were out of needles. I lost my mind for a moment. It wasn't a mad lost my mind, it was a crazy lost my mind feeling. I was frantically searching through our bedroom hoping that one escaped somewhere. I bet I looked in the box a million times. I was blaming Caremark, because a person's mail away pharmacy that their insurance requires them to use is always at fault for any type of medication mess up. I kept asking over and over "What are we going to do, really What are we going to do? Can a person just walk into a pharmacy and purchase more needles. WHAT DID WE NEED TO DO? Jay was trying to be the rational one and tell me it will be ok. He'd take care of the needle situation on Friday. I kept saying "yeah, but can you just walk into a pharmacy and buy needles". It was a mess. He said he was going to take in the bottle of Lupron and he's would beg the owner if he had to.

We were desperate so we pulled a needle out that had already been used and boiled it. Like Jay said I was the only one it was used on. I know that, but I worried about bacteria and what not. But the alternative was not getting the shot and risk cancelling the cycle. I went with the bacteria and used the needle. Hopefully my stomach won't rot off. Today Jay walked into our local pharmacy and purchased 10 needles for $3.27….so just FYI, the next time you have the sniffles and aches and have to sign over your firstborn child to buy some Sudafed just remember that anyone can go into a pharmacy and buy needles. I just found that to be strange. Or then again, maybe it's not just anybody, maybe it is a man dragging in his wife's Lupron prescription who's neck is bent at an odd angle so to look them in the eye he had to turn his whole body. Yeah, maybe that was it….

I really think though that the crazies are 20% medication and 80% stress, nerves, hopes, prayers, dreams, longings, etc. It's really a crazy place to be in and probably not many who haven't gone through it completely understand. Even Jay, who's always the optimist, isn't sure what we'll do after this. We are just continuing to pray every day for this cycle. I'm not sure anyone would want to be around me if I had to do this again.