Great news!

we were able to go through with the retrival!! It was such a great moment after are ultrasound to confirm we would be able to go through with it our RE left the room DH and I broke down we were so happy we are still a long way from being where we want but we hit another milestone in this crazy journey! After the retrival my RE came in and said "we pulled 7 lucky number 7" she had no idea DH and I had been refering to "them" as the lucky 7! Thank You all again for your kind words!

Quick update

went into my RE office yesterday. apparently they have only had this hapen two other times both times they were still able to do a retrival. they took an ultra sound and than i heard quit the conversation amongst the doctors at the clinic. one seem to think the images showed i would be ovulating very soon and thought we should still move forward with retrival yesterday. Two other doctors thought that we should still wait for my bloodwork anf holdoff until today. To say that my stomach has been in knots would be an understatement. My RE called last night and said that my numbers looked promising. This morning we are going in hoping and praying i did not already ovulate. They will do an ultrasound first and if everything looks ok we will go through with the retrival. The last few days have been field with anger,fustration and doubt. Im not sure why these thing keep happening but I know now more than ever how strong DH and I are. I know God will bring us through this.  Thank You all so much for yiur kind words and support  it has ment so much to me. hopefully my next post will bring good news. sorry for all the errors im on my phone and its 5 in the morning.

We took a dive....

I just got a call from my RE apparently my hcg did not rise. she thinks i got a bad dose. This means no retrival tomorrow. DH and i are driving to pick up a new dosage and pray that my estradiol rises tomorrow. in my re words we will try to salvage this cycle. if not than nothing. she said this has only happened very few times. why me?

Update:

Ok well I have gathered myself a little. My RE called and said although I had no traces of HCG my estradol level did rise so thats a good thing,. We just got back from picking up Novadrel Im supposed to take it at 11:30pm tonight in hopes to have a retrival on Wedensday. Ovidral is what I took last night. Has this ever happened to anyone? My RE said this rarely happens. She said we are hoping to go in tomorrow and my estradol level rises. Im trying really hard to be positive but the truth is Im freaking out. I havent taken any other stims since yesterday morning when I took microdose Lupron. Is there even a chance of this working? Will I ovulate on my own, will my eggs be to old? Both my RE and nurse seem to feel confident but part of me feels thats what they have to do.

MIA

Im feeling a little disconnected I think this has been my longest stretch without blogging. I wish I had enough energy to gather up something great to post but that is not the case so today you will get bullet points.

·         Thanksgiving was a great success. It wasn’t anything big this year but it was still great. My little brother said the prayer and asked God for a new niece or nephew at the table next year (I cried) than we played Taboo until we couldn’t laugh anymore.

·         Black Friday = EPIC Fail, this was my first year not going out with my mom. I had absolutely no energyL.

·         Monitoring check #3 11/26/11. Two new follicles joined the party but they were too little to late the doctor said. We also had a few slow growers so the Doc decided to do one more day of meds. So this moved my retrieval till tomorrow instead of today.

·         Monitoring Check #4 11/27/11. Met with my actual RE and she seemed very pleased with the way my lucky 7 were coming along. (The smallest was 15mm and my largest was 21.3mm) She seemed pleasantly surprised which almost made me cry, OK maybe I cried a little.

·         Last night  Early this morning at exactly 12:45am we did our trigger shot. DH and I were both so excited we almost cried. We shared the most amazing moment. I love that man.

·         This morning I went in for blood work and to sign consent forms. I can’t believe I made it this far.

I am feeling so excited today. I can’t wait to get to my RE office tomorrow.

Oh and ofcourse there are some updates "Dressed from the ankles down"

Blogger Awards!!!

A BIG THANK YOU to Kayla over at Life is Simple, Its just not easy who gave me my first blogger award! 

Liebster is a German word meaning dearest, and the award is given to up-and-coming bloggers

with less than 200 followers.

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.

2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

4. Hope that the people you’ve sent the award to forward it to their five favorite bloggers and keep it going!

The 5 Blogs below are the ones that I personally want to award for being awesome:

1.   waiting and wishing

2.       Lauren @ The Yoakum crew... and a foster dog or 2!   

3.       LC @ Still Dreaming

4.       Mrs. H @ Mrs H my life unscripted

5.       Lanie @ Unruffled Lanie



2nd monitoring appointment..

Things seem to be moving right along. No new follicles to report. Only the same 7 which I’m happy with 7 is a lucky number. Hopefully luck is sending me a sign that it is sticking around for a while (Let’s hope).

The doctor said everything was looking as should be expected and the lucky 7 are all pretty close in size.  So that makes me happy. Unfortunately I have this ridiculous head cold that has knocked me on my butt. Between that and these meds my mind is completely gone. I am surprised I am even posting anything today. I feel like I can’t focus on anything. Yesterday I was on the phone with my mom and she asked me “are you even listening?” The truth is I wasn’t, it wasn’t like I was doing anything else I am just out of it.

I hope I get my mind back soon!!

Don’t forget to check out “Dressed from the ankles down”

Welcome ICLWers

For those of you stopping by my blog for the first time, I’m Jessica I’m 27 and married to an amazing man living in beautiful Southern California.  You have caught me in the middle of my first IVF (praying it’s my only) cycle and with a bad head cold (I will save that for another post). 

Here is a piece of an old post (8/25/11) that tells you a little of our story.

 I am a newbie to IVF and I am still attempting to master IVF lingo, yet my story in the world of fertility problems began over 20 years ago when I was only six years old. During most of my first grade year I struggled with abdominal pain, doctor visits and finally being diagnosed with a tumor that had grown and wrapped itself around my right ovary and fallopian tube that resulted in the removal of them all. At the time of surgery I had no Idea what it all meant and was completely oblivious to any future implications in regards to my ability to becoming a parent. All I remember is that the first grade wasn’t easy and being held back a year due to missing school too often was devastating.

            At the age of 14 I was back at the hospital for the removal of a large cyst that had developed on my left ovary and that was growing very rapidly. The doctor discussed with my parents the possibility of having to remove my ovary; I can still picture my mother with tears in her eyes telling me about the possibility of not being able to have children. Thankfully they were able to remove the cyst without any complications. This scenario repeated itself again when I was seventeen years old and when I was twenty years old. It was then that I met the love of my life, my husband Nick. Early on in the relationship I felt the responsibility to share with him my fertility problems as to give him the opportunity to decide if he wished to continue to pursue a relationship with a woman who might not be able to conceive a child, or as my parents presented to Nick when he asked for my hand in marriage, “she might have baby making issues.” It was painful to hear my parents say those words despite the fact that growing up with these medical issues had pushed me to never imagine myself as a mother. I guess deep down I had never lost hope.

My feelings of fear and hope in being able to conceive became all too real in late 2009 when a new cyst that was larger than my ovary was found. The cyst was growing at an alarming rate and therefore it would require surgery. I did not fear the surgery as I had the other times. This time the feelings had changed. Up until then, my fertility problems had been a shared experience between my parents and I, now there was Nick sitting next to me at the doctor’s office listening to the possibility of having to remove my only ovary and crushing any possibility of us as a couple being able to conceive a child. I felt the worst I had ever felt thus far in my life because it had been one thing for my body to let me down but it was another to see it hurting my husband. Nick put on a brave face and told me it would be fine but, I could tell by the look on his face his hope was being tested.

I went into surgery not knowing what my future could hold and woke up to Nick telling me that the doctor had been able to save my ovary.  There was short lived hope in hearing his words followed by sorrow.  Nick informed me about my fallopian tube being completely blocked due to damage from scar tissue from my other surgeries and thus eliminated any possibility of being able to conceive on our own.  I just cried and cried and cried. I cried for three days straight. I cry again as I relive that day. It was then that we were given the referral for the fertility specialist and it took about a year for me to process my thoughts and feelings surrounding IVF and manage the courage to fight for the ability to conceive and carry a child with the help of IVF. 

Earlier I mentioned that for years I had never imagined myself as a mother and believed that I would be okay if I never had my own children. Truth be told, I have been practicing my mothering skills from an early age.  My parents worked a lot when I was a teenager and I took on many duties in our home in their absence. My little sister leaving for college has been one of my proudest and most difficult moments in my life. At my wedding my little brother gave a speech saying, “you are my second mom, please don’t forget me.”  Although they are not my children, I believe that I have contributed to creating the people they are today and I’m very proud of that.

Then there is Nick, he is such a warm and caring man. I could not have asked for a better partner in life. One of our favorite things to do is have our nieces and nephews over for the weekend. Seeing the way Nick interacts with them and how they just love him makes me fall in love with him all over again. It is in those moments that I can picture what our life with our own children could be. When my seven year old nephew told Nick, “you are my favorite uncle,” Nick almost cried, I almost cried.

I believe Nick and I have mastered the skills of being a good brother, sister, aunt and uncle and now we are ready to be the best Mommy and Daddy we know we can be. Nick and I made a commitment to each other in marriage and now we have made our commitment to our children in being able to find the strength and means to explore all possibilities that could lead us into becoming parents. We have never wanted anything more in life and we hope every day that our baby girl Leena or baby boy Brayden come into our lives because they will be loved more than words could ever express. We just need science to help us to make that happen.

Thank you for stopping by...