IVF Story

This is a topic that is personal but very near to my heart. I think that infertility and IVF are topics that just don't get discussed very often and they are so so emotional, so having it out in the open might make it easier for people.
My husband and I started trying to get pregnant in June 2004. We tried for 3 and a half years with no success. I tried various medications and nothing worked. Going through infertility struggles is one of the most difficult things a person can imagine. I know that there are people who don't want kids, but we weren't those people. We wanted a family desperately and not being about to have one made us terrified, sad, exhausted and powerless. Finally, we decided to try in vitro fertilization.

We met with the most amazing doctor and he told us that we would have to go through some diagnostic procedures because we didn't know why I wasn't getting pregnant. I had bloodwork, ultrasounds and finally an HSG test, which is basically injecting dye through the organs to see what they look like. After having that test, it was discovered that I have a birth defect, an incredibly rare one, called a unicornuate uterus. Basically, instead of forming both sides of the uterus to create a fully formed uterus, I am missing one entire half, along with one fallopian tube. I was so devastated because we didn't know if I would even be able to carry a baby. Plus, people who have this defect are also usually missing a kidney and ureter, so I had to go get a cat scan to make sure that was all in order. Luckily, the kidney and ureter were there and I met with a high risk OB/GYN who assured us that I should be able to carry one baby as long as I had careful observation in case I went into preterm labor. (That did end up happening, but that is another post)

Finally, we were ready to start. First we got a giant box of medications mailed to us. So many shots and patches and pills...

The first step was to take birth control pills to stop my cycle so that the doctor would have a fresh start to work with. Then some small injections started. Then it was time for 3 injections per day. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I was pretty bruised up. One of the injections is Projesterone, which is very oily. It leaves you with big lumps at the injection site, blah. Then, when everything was perfect and I had several eggs on my ovaries, 19 to be exact, the doctor called and told me to take a "super" injection at exactly 1:00. This had to be done at precisely the right time because the eggs had to be harvested exactly 35 hours later.

We went in as scheduled and they sedated me and removed the eggs. It was fast and easy, but I was really uncomfortable for the rest of the day.


This is us five days later. Of the 19 eggs that were harvested, they fertilized 11. 8 of those eggs actually took and became blastocysts. One of those was implanted into my uterus on this day. So in this picture, we are about to get pregnant in a room with three other people :) I always joke that John will actually be telling the truth when he says his parents didn't really have sex to get pregnant lol. Anyway, they strapped me to this chair with nothing on my bottom half and turned me upside down. The picture below is of the little catheter containing John as he was being implanted into my uterus. After all of the struggles, it was so magical to see this exchange of life taking place right before my eyes.

The picture below is what the embryo looked like before it was implanted at five days post fertilization. I love this picture because not very many people in the world have something like it.

Two weeks later we got a call that we were pregnant!!! It was the most amazing conversation I have ever had in my entire life.

When all is said and done, we spent about $14,000 dollars getting pregnant. This isn't counting all of the stuff before IVF or the incredible expense of my pregnancy. I didn't have insurance that covered infertility, so this was all out of pocket. Thankfully, we got help from my mom or we would never have been able to do it. I can safely say though, that any amount of money would have been worth it.

So, that's my IVF story in a nutshell. If you stuck with me through this post I appreciate it, but I am most looking forward to having this little record for myself :)

Happy Thursday!

Wednesday Wishes and some journal pages

Wednesdays are for wishing, so lets get to it :)

I wish that I had someone to make me delicious vegan cupcakes for my birthday on Saturday. I have no idea if the cupcakes in the picture are vegan, but they look scrumptious.

I wish I had a closetful of cute, light summer dresses to wear now that it is getting so hot. I am not really a shorts person, so I wear jeans almost all of the time. If I had some cutie dresses maybe I would be a little cooler.

I wish for my family to have tons of laughs and smiles this week. That happens pretty much every week, but we are hitting the terrible twos pretty hard right now, so I hope for more smiles than meltdowns.

I reserved I've Loved You So Long, with Kristin Scott Thomas, from the library but it isn't here yet. I wish I could watch it right now.

I wish it was still rainy and cold. I love winter and it is always over too soon.



Here are the latest journal pages that I have been working on. I think I may be a day or two behind because I have been working on a necklace and a mother's day gift, but I like what I have so far. I also did two more, but I am not crazy about them.

Happy Wednesday All! Don't forget to check out Courtney, Kellie and Liz's wishes :)

All of the wish images are from weheartit.com

I don't even have enough energy to title this post :)

John started swim lessons at my moms house today. One of my moms friends teaches kids so will be coming over once a week for the next few weeks to teach John about swimming.

He loved it and I loved watching him learn something new. He did so well! However, if I am going to be in the pool on a regular basis I will probably need to invest in a legit bathing suit. I felt like a geek in boxers and a tank top :) Eh, on the other hand I will probably just save the money and keep looking like a bum.

My mom was in charge of taking photos and I guess her bird wanted in on the action :)

Yesterday we had coffee with some friends at this really cute local coffee shop. They have a big courtyard with shade to hang out in. We were the only ones there, so John and another little boy were running around playing. Right before we left I looked over to what John was doing, mind you I check him constantly because he is two and he is always getting into stuff. Somehow in the little period of time between eye contact he had unbuttoned his pants, pulled off his diaper and peed all over the chair and rocks. I was so mortified. Thank god no one was around to see my child acting like he was raised in a barn. He thought the whole thing was absolutely hilarious, and I have to admit that some small part of me agreed, but the mom in me had to withhold laughter :)

Tomorrow I get an entire day with my mom. My birthday is Saturday, so we are celebrating that and mothers day with an awesome day together. We have no plans except to see Nightmare on Elm Street. I am really really really excited to have an entire day all to myself :)

I will see you tomorrow for Wednesday Wishes. Sorry my posts have been kind of blah lately. My insomnia is killing me, and the lack of sleep leaves me with very little brain power to do normal things :)

Happy Tuesday!

Just another Manic Sunday...

Actually the whole weekend was a great kind of crazy :) I remembered to take pictures from a lot of it, which I almost always forget to do. So I will start with the pictures :)

I got to meet Rikki from Seitanic Vegan Heathen at a vegan bake sale. She is so sweet and of course I love her blog, so I was very excited to meet her in person. Unfortunately, John was getting a little crazy so we had to make a quick exit. Luckily, we bought a load of goodies before we left. I would like to say I took pictures of the sweets, but we were too excited to get to the eating. Needless to say, they we delectable. Hopefully I will be able to get together with Rikki again soon.


After that we went to John's "Mampa and Mamma Jackie's" house. Two of his cousins were there and they all played on the trampoline. It was so much fun to watch them all interact because they are at totally different developmental stages. P.S. look at John's fat little tummy...so squishy and cute :)

This afternoon Josh had to work and John and I were looking for something fun to do. I decided to take him to the youth museum in Mesa where we have a membership. He hasn't been sick in a while (YEAH!!!) so we are venturing out a bit more. Anyway, the museum is awesome and he had a great time.

Then, he wanted to see the dinosaurs at the natural history museum next door, so we went there too.


He is so intrigued by the T-Rex. It roars and he will just hang out waiting to see it.

They also have an area where you can pan for gold, so we had to do that for a while too.

All in all it was a great weekend. To top it off, Josh has the next three days off of work, so we are going to have some family time. And Josh is going to watch John on Wednesday, so I am going to hang out with my mom for the entire day.

Did everyone else have a nice weekend? We watched Balls of Fury (Josh's choice) with my dad and it was so ridiculously bad. Sometimes movies like that are so bad that they circle around to being good again, but this was just plain bad. Even Christopher Walken couldn't save it. Don't waste your time :)

Happy Sunday Everyone!