Where do we go from here?

We got word nearly two hours ago, that none of our embryos fertilized – nothing.  Kris and I are still in shock and the sadness and despair we feel is deeper than we envisioned.  Where do you turn when you have everything you dreamed of in life except the one thing that means the most; the one thing you’ve wanted above all else?

On Pins and Needles

As I’m writing this, the minutes pass by like hours and my stomach is tied in knots.  It’s 11:18am and still no word from my nurse, Gloria.  It’s not that she should have called by now, but that I needed her to have called by now.  My post-op paperwork says if you haven’t heard anything by 1:00pm, then to give my nurse a call.  In the meantime, my hope is that no news is good news.

As you all know, yesterday went really well.  My egg retrieval went smoothly and Dr. Dunn was able to retrieve 5 eggs.  At this time, we are still uncertain of the size of my eggs, but Dr. Dunn seemed to be happy with them. 

Other than losing my short-term memory while in recovery, I did really well for my first time under anesthesia.  I repeated questions 5-10 times over an hour and a half time period (but who’s counting!).  Kris tried so hard to pretend he was answering my questions like it was the first time I asked them, without smiling or laughing (as if I would remember).  Funny thing is; I thought I was sleeping the whole time in recovery and it turns out I never slept, but spoke coherently the entire time. That blows my mind!  Kris said I would close my eyes every once in a while and open them only to be startled and have no idea where I was.  Once I had a grasp on where I was, I would excitedly ask how many eggs and how many motile sperm he had.  My poor husband…  

Actually, I take that back! He was fortunate (actually, we both were) and escaped surgery, because his semen sample was good!  Again, we don’t know the details yet, other than he had 10 motile sperm counted before we left, which is twice as many as we needed. 

Although we are both very nervous to receive this first phone call, we are filled with so much hope that this is our time; that our baby was conceived last night.

Here are a few photos from our special St. Paddy's Day:



This is me soon after the egg retrieval. Things moved quickly once we arrived so we couldn't get a 'before' picture.




I  can't remember this photo, but I'm glad we have it! A super excited Daddy-to-be!



I woke up from my nap to new running boards!

Thanks Dad and Kris!

Happiest of St. Patrick's Days!

Over the last few weeks, I really struggled with making a decision on how to move forward with IVF.  Do we continue on with Dr. Dunn for a third round or do we start fresh and make the switch to Dr. McKenzie whom we highly respected as well?  The two doctors offered very different protocols for round three and each doctor presented them very persuasively.  However, they both respectfully disagreed with the other and that made for a very difficult decision.  So, who do I choose and how do I know which move is right for us?  The answer is; I had no idea.  We decided at the very last second, to continue on with Dr. Dunn for many reasons.  We value his honesty and his integrity, we have already paid for our IVF cycle that we have yet to complete, and he gave factual information on why he did not think Dr. McKenzie’s protocol would work for me. 

The truth above all else is; I listened to my gut as I have throughout this whole process.

So, the following day after making the final decision, I started Femara.  I fully understood that I was 1 of 5-10% of Dr. Dunn’s patients with diminished ovarian reserve and out of those patients only 5-10% of us actually respond to Femara.  It was a definite risk and Kris and I are beyond thrilled that we took the chance. Because…

IT WORKED!

We are happy to announce I go in for my egg retrieval on St. Patrick’s Day at 7:45am!  I would say, may the ‘luck of the Irish’ be upon us, but I recently read that it actually means bad luck or ill fortune.  I also read someone’s personal definition of the term that I could really appreciate.  To this person and now me, ‘Luck of the Irish’ means to be lucky at heart from the support of family and friends.  Each of you have seen us through the good times and held us together through the rough times and that is truly the ‘Pot of Gold’ at the end of my rainbow.

Once again, thank you all for your constant love and support when we have needed you most. We are still hoping for a miracle and need your prayers and support more than ever as we finally have this amazing opportunity in front of us.  Kris and I promise to keep you informed in the coming days as we know more, but for now, pray, pray, pray for Baby Simpson!  May this be a St. Paddy's Day we will never forget.

Keeping the Faith

I’ve been delaying this post because I’m not really sure how I feel lately.  As I’ve experience throughout our fertility journey, each day I feel differently.  So here I am, very raw and very real.

We met with Dr. Dunn on Monday and I can’t say it was a “good” meeting, but it was a very proactive meeting.  Lots of questions were answered and over the last couple of days decisions have been made.  It turns out we only have one more shot (no pun intended) at IVF and that’s with yet again, one more medication added to my regimen that will help my follicles to grow.  For my fellow fertility friends reading, that medication is called Femara. 

And that’s it-one last effort to exhaust all resources.

Through Dr. Dunn’s recommendation, we have also decided to get a second opinion before we move forward with cycle #3.  All of us including Dr. Dunn want to be certain there is nothing more that can be done before “throwing in the towel” as Kris says.  Dr. Dunn gave us three recommendations of doctors that could be beneficial to us.  We researched those doctors, as well as our own choices and decided on Dr. McKenzie.  And just to clarify, Dr. McKenzie will just be giving us a second opinion.  We will still proceed with IVF through Dr. Dunn’s office.  We haven’t lost faith in his opinion or his abilities, but we will all sleep better at night knowing a few doctors have looked over our history and all have the same diagnosis.

In this same meeting, we also discussed our remaining options.  As we were already aware, there are many, but none ideal.  Kris and I decided in the beginning if we got to a point where IVF didn’t work, we would not be open to egg or sperm donation.  We continue to stand by our belief that our baby should have both of our DNA or neither.  So that leaves us with adoption and within adoption your have three choices-embryo adoption, international adoption and US adoption.  As of today, we are considering adoption in that order, but we all know that could change.

Here is where my raw emotions reside…

As I mentioned in the previous post, our hearts have become open to the idea of adoption, but this idea may soon become a reality.  At this moment, my heart is not at peace with this outcome, but I know in time I will find that place again.  I also know God granted me the unexplainable peace I felt before as our diagnosis was looking more and more dim, and I know He won’t give up on me now.

Dr. Dunn gave us a list of adoption agencies to simply look into.  And I did.  Turns out, I shouldn’t have.  As I read about each option, all I could imagine was heartache.  None of which was in our control.

Now I know our options and I’m going to file them away and focus on our last IVF cycle.  I’ve realized I don’t have to be okay with adoption just yet.  We aren’t quite there.  And if we do get there, I have faith my heart will be ready for adoption in a way that we’ve never wanted anything more.  These things just take time…

"Love is all you need"

Sorry to leave you all in the dark.  I left that one little line to get the word out a week ago and never looked back. 

Kris and I are actually handling all of this amazingly well.  We are stronger now individually than we ever thought we would be, but more importantly, our marriage is better than ever.  We had our weak moment after the first cycle was cancelled, but it turns out that was the challenge we needed to overcome to unite us.

After we got word our cycle was cancelled, I just needed a day (Thursday) to myself.  I didn’t talk to anyone.  I barely spoke to Kris until he got home that night-somehow he just knew I needed some alone time.  I spent the day cleaning and thinking of anything other than our situation.  If you know me, then you know I like to clean as my stress reliever.  And of course a little shopping never hurt anyone!  To me, there’s little better than a sparkly clean house with all the candles burning…

We didn’t actually sit down and talk about how we were feeling until Friday night.  We both needed time to absorb.  That night, we had a wonderful dinner and an even better evening at home when Kris turned our house into a wine bar-swanky music and all!  And over a nice bottle of Pinot Gris, we poured our hearts out to each other…

I’ve learned very quickly in this process that I should listen to my gut-my very first instinct.  A friend recently told me that your gut instinct is Gods way of talking to you.  And maybe she’s right!  It just so happens, Kris’ gut is giving him the same feeling.

And that is…

Maybe we are rushing this.  Maybe this isn’t the right time for us to have a biological child.  Individually, we both have severe problems to prevent us from having a baby naturally, but are they really that severe that it could NEVER happen?  We don’t believe so. 

Kris and I aren’t making any decisions on how to move forward until we talk to Dr. Dunn on Monday, but we do know that we don’t have many more IVF cycles in us.  Emotionally, physically and financially, IVF is draining.  Our life seems to be hanging in the balances of IVF and it’s getting old.  Six months of, “can I drink this?” or “can I go to hot yoga today” or “can we leave for vacation right now” is really starting to wear on us.

We want a baby to love unconditionally more than anything and to us; it doesn’t matter if that baby has our DNA.  I’m not saying we are giving up on a biologically child forever, but recently our hearts have really been open to the idea of adoption.  Back when Kris and I were dating, we talked about adoption one day in addition to our biological children and we liked the idea.  Maybe now we will just have adopted children and maybe one day a surprise biological child!  Either way, they are ours to raise and love will all that we are and that’s all that matters.  In the end, “love is all you need”.

History Repeats Itself...

My cycle was cancelled once again for similar reasons as before.

We Live to Fight another Day…

As my husband so eloquently defines our situation.  On Saturday, we went in for my first ultrasound and blood work appointment since starting the injections.  Since it was Saturday, there was an on-call nurse instead of my regular nurse, Gloria and Dr. Dunn was enjoying his weekend at home as well.  I give you these details only because the on-call nurse gave me some worrisome days and sleepless nights this weekend.  I won’t bore you with the details, but there was one particular mature follicle that gave the on-call nurse a reason for concern.  After my blood work came in, she called Dr. Dunn and reported back to me that we were at risk on cancelling the cycle if things didn’t look better on Monday.  I know there must have been some miscommunication along the way, because what she told me that morning and what she told me that afternoon were complete contradictions.  Nevertheless, I had some unsettling emotions the whole weekend and the “what-ifs” started playing in my mind again.  Plan B is in motion right now, so if this cycle were to be cancelled, we would have to move on to Plan C.  As of now, we don’t have a Plan C, but Dr. Dunn anticipates that Plan C will unlikely involve a biological child.  I hope you can understand my fears this early in the process.  Kris and I aren’t ready to give up the fight for a miniature Kris; chunky with stark black hair and a grin from ear-to-ear or a miniature me; again chubby, with a head full of hair and a button nose.  Can’t you just see him or her now?

Here’s the good news-I spoke with Gloria, my regular nurse this afternoon and I now have 7 measurable follicles that are still small, but my estrogen is high which means the follicles will hopefully increase in size this week.  The one mature follicle we were originally concerned about was actually mature before we even began the medications, so we are to completely disregard that follicle.  If my follicles do mature this week, I will have an egg retrieval early next week and Kris will have a testicular biopsy to remove his sperm that same day.  And then…we wait for a miracle!  We know each day is a fight and each day a blessing, so for now...we live to fight another day.