Come On Lefty!

"I think I can. I think I can. I think I can."  

Is it weird I'm cheering my left ovary on? For you fertile folks who don't know which ovary you are ovulating from this month, here's a crash course in ovaries as told by yours truly. 

You have 2 ovaries. One on the right. One on the left. 

Each cycle you will ovulate from ONE ovary. 

If you ovulate on the right this cycle, next cycle...

You ovulate on the LEFT. 

Now that we are all on the same page, let me explain to you MY ovaries! I have two just like every other female out there. There's a catch though. My right ovary is perfect, wonderful, and works amazing. My right tube doesn't flow the way a normal ovary should though. It's like a clogged bathtub drain. My left ovary--well, she's a little confused. Sometimes it decides to grow these enormous 8cm cysts instead of releasing an egg. Sometimes she completely forgets it is her turn to send an egg down the chute. It's just whatever she feels like doing that month. The tube to my left ovary is clear as could be! Therein lies the problem. 

Right Side = Good Ovary, Bad Tube

Left Side= Bad Ovary, Good Tube

This cycle, it is good 'ol Lefty's turn. I started my FSH injections on Tuesday evening at 125IU. I did injections Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. I went back to NFC today for my monitoring appointment. Much to everyone's surprise, I did not have a single follicle over 10mm. Not. a. single. one. My estradiol level was 79 on Tuesday when they did my baseline blood draw. Today it was a whopping 50. My nurse and doctor have decided to increase my dosage of Follistim to 150IU for the weekend. I'm hoping, praying, and believing I will not wake up Monday morning with a swollen belly. I'm praying I do not overstimulate and have to cancel our cycle. I mean I've spent over $800 on meds this week alone on top of the $410 I paid for my monitoring appointments. So we're looking at $1,210 in one week. It will all be worth it when we see our precious miracle(s) on that ultrasound screen though! 

So what are we praying for this weekend? First and foremost, we are thanking God for picking us up and giving us the strength, courage, and means to pick ourselves up from the sad hole we were in a week ago. Contrary to what some may believe, we never gave up on our faith in God and His power. We were sad. Wouldn't you be sad if you just KNEW you were pregnant only to find out you weren't for the 20th month in a row? Yes. You would. Did you catch I said we "WERE" sad. Yeah. We were. We aren't anymore. Monday morning I woke up with the attitude of a superwoman. I know that wasn't ME though. It was God. It was completely God. The day before I barely had the energy to put make up on. God gave me the strength to pick myself up and press forward. So that's one thing we are adding to our prayers, our never ending list of thanks to God for everything He has shown us and brought us through. We are also praying for some pretty, awesome, perfect follicles to make an appearance on Monday at my monitoring appointment. Oh and Let's also pray I do not eat everything in sight this weekend. These hormones are no joke. I could eat constantly if I had enough food on hand. 

So that's what going on. I have a happy face. I'm ready to do this! 

Dust Yourself Off

After grieving for three days straight, it is time to put on our game faces and continue pressing forward. The first step in pressing forward was to deactivate my Facebook account for a few weeks. Let's be honest, the people who want to know how I'm doing ask me via text, phone call, email, or blog comment. I feel like taking a step back from Facebook will help me fully focus on what we are up against the next few weeks. 

What am I up against?

Well if I learned anything over the weekend, I learned I'm NOT a quitter. Just because we struck out on our first cycle with injections does't mean we are out of the game. I will be honest, there were moments over the weekend when I wanted to just call the clinic, thank them for their support, and encouragement, tuck my tail and hide in my closet. That is NOT the Kari I know. The Kari I know is not a quitter. The Kari I know does not take not pregnant no for an answer! [insert Rocky theme music] We are still in this and by God's power, we have dusted ourselves off and are ready for the next steps. 

I have my baseline u/s and blood draw tomorrow morning. Please pray and believe with me that I will be cyst free, my lining will be thin, and my levels will be where they should be. If for some reason my body is not ready for another cycle, we are prepared to take a month off so I can lose some of this fertility drug weight, relax, and focus on our upcoming anniversary and new ventures. We are actively believing our miracles are on the way and we will NOT let anyone discourage us! 

I Have No Words

My fear was we would pour all of this time, money, prayer, and energy into an injectible IUI cycle and then it would fail. I had honestly prepared myself for an OHSS (ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome) diagnosis early in the cycle since I had so much trouble with it when we did the oral meds in previous treatment cycles --Clomid especially. Much to our surprise and God's wonderful power, I did not have OHSS this cycle. I did ovulate this cycle. My lining was great. My husband's counts were "out of the ball park" to quote a Nurse Practitioner. I had one perfect, beautiful mature follicle after 5 days of Follistim injections. My trigger shot went well.  On the day of our IUI, the NP commented that my cervical mucus was "great" and there was a lot of it, which was another plus. In my mind and heart, I knew this was our cycle. Everything was going so smoothly. Everything was by the book perfect. The problems we had during our previous treatment cycles were nowhere to be seen. We just KNEW we would finally have our miracle baby in December 2014. 

Last night all of those dreams came crashing down. Every single one of them. There will not be a baby in December 2014. We will not be announcing on Fathers' Day that Trey will finally become a daddy. We will not be cleaning out the extra bedroom so we can turn it into a nursery. I don't need to buy loose spring clothes to hide a growing belly. I don't need that $48 workout by trimester DVD I purchased. I won't be giving Trey his "I love Daddy" book and a positive pregnancy test on Friday. Our IUI failed. I have started my period after a very very faint positive pregnancy test that gave us hope yesterday that my spotting was implantation bleeding. Nope. There is not a baby in my belly. The sense of peace, confidence, and hope are gone. 

Last night as I was brushing my teeth, I stared at the sharps container on our bathroom counter. I suddenly had an overwhelming sense of resentment for each of the 7 needles in that container. I finished brushing my teeth. I picked up the sharps container and shook it at my husband. "I went through all of this! Our romantic evenings of baby making began with you giving me a shot. There are people who can hop in bed with whoever for a one night stand and they can get pregnant but not us! This so unfair." That rant was followed by me using the bathroom only to find my period had gotten heavier. My husband literally had to pick me up out of the floor as I sobbed uncontrollably on the bathroom floor. 

I would be lying if I told you I'm not mad. I am so mad. So so mad. I'm mad/sad/disappointed/upset/hurt/confused. What have I done wrong in my life? Why did God lay this desire on my heart, dangle it in front of my face, then snatch it away from me in the blink of an eye? Why? Why can't my husband be a father to a child of his own? Why can't we raise a child together? Why do we feel like God has opened doors only to slam them in our faces? 

I'm furious. I'm sad. I wanna scream. I'm so mad at God. Four years ago I was on my hands and knees praying to save my first marriage. It didn't work. Within 3 months, we were in a lawyer's office filing for divorce. Then I prayed I would not lose my child. I lost custody of him anyway. I prayed every time Gavin would scream, "I hate you! I want my daddy! I don't wanna stay with you!" I prayed God would help him understand and that I would have my sweet, baby back. For an entire year my child would not stay the night with me during my small allotted time with him because he wanted his daddy more. For almost 2 years I have prayed to give my amazing, loving, husband who is my best friend a child of his own for us to raise and love TOGETHER in a loving, caring, Christian home. For almost 2 years I have prayed for this child that for some reason I'm not deserving enough to have. For 2 years I have watched everyone around me get pregnant and make cute gender reveal announcements. I have attended baby shower after baby shower to celebrate new little ones on the way and hoped one day those people would attend a baby shower for me. I have  daydreamed about how cute it would be for Trey to announce he is going to be a daddy on Fathers Day. I have had to treat my body as if I am pregnant for the past 5 months.... But my womb is empty. I'm not deserving enough of an answered prayer. I'm not deserving enough to get to actually be a real mom to the one and only child who has ever make it into this world from my womb. This sucks more than anything I've ever dealt with the past 2 years. This isn't just another month of no baby. This is dreams shattered. This is my savings account blown. This is me being completely upset with God. Why not me? Why can't I give my husband a child? 

Excuse me if I stepped on any toes or stuck someone as rude. I'm hurting. I'm disappointed. These are my thoughts and I had to share them. I had to get them out in the open. 

My God is Bigger

We need lots of prayers. I had cramping yesterday and started spotting last night. The doc on call said there's nothing they can do, but I know God can do something. Praying for a miracle and that our baby is digging a spot to stay for the next several months. I know everything medical points towards this not being a viable pregnancy, but I know God is bigger than medicine. Praying. For the past 2 weeks we have prayed for our baby to find a spot and for God to take care of our little miracle. I am absolutely devastated. For the past 2 weeks we have believed THIS was it. We have talked about "our baby". I text my husband daily to tell him what I have fed "our baby" for lunch. I even ordered a super special "I Love My Daddy" gift for my husband. I'm determined. God is so much bigger than anything a doctor can say. Please pray with us. Please. 

Dear Baby: 

I do not know what's going on, but I'm scared. Please hold on tight in there. We love you so much already. Please little one... 

Love, 

Mommy 

I've put myself on bedrest for the day. My little fur baby is watching out for me. 

Prayers Please

I've started spotting. I'm nervous, scared, and worried. Prayers please. Baby Bell needs to hold on tight in there. 

I Did Something Stupid...

I took a pregnancy test. . . a week sooner than my doctor instructed me to. 

Earlier in the week, I was 94.35784% positive I was pregnant. My boobs had grown a cup size. I was exhausted. I was a slight bit nauseous. Oh and let's not forget how cranky/ happy/ sad/ mad I was all within an 8 hour period of time. I was convinced I tell you! Convinced! Maybe it was all from the last Ovidrel injection we did on March 28th. Maybe I had myself all hyped up. Who knows. Regardless of whatever it was. The so-called pregnancy symptoms faded by Wednesday and I was back to my normal infertile feeling self. So just for the heck of it, I decided to POAS (pee on a stick for those of you who are not familiar with the infertile lingo) this morning. It IS a little early. I'm 14dpo, 13dpIUI, and it has been 7 days since my last progesterone injection. It was not a positive pregnancy test. I'm not going to say the "N" word. I refuse at this point to allow myself to think the opposite of positive. 

I will say this though... 
I was ok with the non-positive test this morning until I had to tell my husband what the results were. I had already trashed the test, so it wasn't like I could tell him to go look for himself. I had to say out loud the words I have dreaded saying to him for the past 4 weeks. We have poured so much prayer into this cycle. If this cycle fails, I am not fully convinced I can walk down this path again. A year ago when we started seeing a specialist, I said from the very beginning that if we ever got to the point where the Clomid or Femara were not working and our next option was injections... I would be through. As each month passed that I didn't ovulate, I slowly began to warm up to the idea of injections. After my surgery in early November, it became evident our next steps would be a referral to a fertility clinic and we would be leaving our amazing OB/GYN with a strong passion for treating infertility. We had our consultation with Dr. W at the fertility clinic in Nashville in early December. After a full exam, ultrasound and a few blood draws, Dr. W laid our options out for us. We could continue with oral meds or move on to injections. I'm not sure what happened to me, but I looked at Trey then looked at Dr. W and said the words I never thought would ever come out of my mouth. 

"I'm ready to move forward with injections. My body has not responded to the oral meds the way it was expected to. I'm ready to try something else." 

If you have followed our journey, you know we did not get to start our injection cycle until late March. We hit several road blocks with genetic testing, cysts, and I went over 70 days without full period. I feel like we spent 3 months just praying for God to take away our anxiety and stress and just take control of the situation and show us what our next steps should be. This morning as I stared at the not positive pregnancy test, I prayed for Baby Bell to hang on tight in there. I thought about how hard it was to hold a needle in front of my belly and try to give myself an injection each day. I thought about how excited we were when the nurse told us I had a mature follicle. When she showed me the follicle on the ultrasound screen, I thought, "This is part of our miracle baby." I thought about how badly my Ovidrel injections hurt. I was all over the place emotionally. Maybe it is too early for his/ her little self to have made my hormones do what they should do. We still have hope. 

When I changed my blog around a bit several months ago, I had every intention of making my blog more about letters to our miracle child. So here it goes. 

Dear Little Baby Bell:

We do not even know if you are in there or not yet. We just know we have been praying for you for almost 2 years. If you are in there, baby, please hold on tight. Please. Mommy and Daddy love you so much already. We can't wait to see your little face. We are not through fighting for you, little one. Mommy especially. Mommy will do whatever she needs to do to bring you into this world, baby. Daddy can't wait to see you and feel you kicking inside Mommy's belly. Please hang on tight in there and find a cozy spot. 

Love, 
Mommy and Daddy

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