Slowly but surely

     We are slowly but surely getting our raffle tickets sold. I have faith that we will get it done! We have had a few very helpful people help us sell tickets and get the word out. We have one more month to sell  tickets so It will be good. I also stated on online fundraising site to sell them online or take any donations people are willing to give. I guess you could say I have resorted to begging! At this point, I am not above that! I am so ready to have the money to start one way or another. If only teachers got paid more! :)
     I am more positive this weekend because I am determined to have a better week. I think I cried at least 50 times last week. It is wearing me out. The mental exhaustion and daily stress is taking its toll. I always want to go to work but it took every thing in my being to go to work a couple days last week. I share a classroom with 3 other adults and I was not pleasant to work with. Bless their hearts, they put up with me though. I need to take a "mental health day," but I am sure it would just be spent doing the same things. I will just look toward Thanksgiving Holidays for a break and enjoy my family for a couple of days.
     I also wanted to mention that I met up with someone that had been done this same road of wanting a child so badly. She was so informative of the IVF process. My step-sister introduced us and she came along as well. We all talked for 3 hours. It helps to talk to someone that can give you a little insight into what would be ahead if we choose that option. I really admire how strong she was. When your in the middle of this and you talk to others that have made it through the hell that infertility is...I just think gosh, i hope one day I seem like that to someone, because right now there are times I am a hot mess when I talk about it. I keep up a good front most of the time though.
     So, today is my day one so I will start adding Decadron to my daily meds. I will take a low dose pill once a day at bedtime. I will start my Chlomid again in a couple of days. When you calculate it on the calendar, ovulation day falls on the weekend again. As far as my husband, we have not heard anything back from his doctor concerning his last semen analysis. I don't know if we should call him or what. I am almost tempted to get a second opinion. It is hard for me to think that there is not more help for him. I guess we will have to talk about it and make a decision.
     Ok, so here are the next few things I am planning on doing....1) asking for a referral to the reproductive endocrinologist in Memphis for a consultation just to check it out. 2) try to set up a meeting with someone who choose adoption. 3) check out other agencies (we have been looking into New Beginnings) 4) keep raising money so when we make our decision we can hit the ground running.

Keep Praying and Thanks for the Support!

No AI this month

Monday’s appointment seemed to be upon us more quickly this month. It was day 15 of my cycle. We had to wait longer than usual. I was planning to try and ask about our next step and if we should get a referral for a consultation with a fertility clinic that performs more advance procedures. Well, all that fell to the wayside. I think my doctor subconsciously knows when I want to ask questions or change something because when I have wanted talk about it he ends up changing things up a little which makes me want to wait and see what this will do. So anyway, once I got into the room and he started the sonogram, he said my endometrium looked good. When he moved on to look at the follicles, he did not see any. He suspected that I had already ovulated and that we would be unable to conduct artificial insemination because it is not usually successful after ovulation.

The result of this is that another medication was added for next month. When I start my Day 1, I will start taking a low dose of decodran (spelling?) at night through day 17. If I remember/heard correctly, he explained that you get estrogen from both the adrenal glad and your ovaries. The light steroid will suppress the release from the adrenal glad so I will only use the estrogen from my ovaries to develop a follicle. He stated that it would produce a healthier follicle and has been shown to have a 50% pregnancy rate. With this added to the routine, I decided to hold off on the referral conversation.

I guess it will be interesting to see how this works and I sre hope it’s a low enough dose not to effect me like when you get the shot when your sick. I guess it could be interesting. We will just have to wait and see.

A horrible weekend

Last weekend was horrible! I had to hold back tears all weekend until I was finally home for good on Sunday. I decided at the last minute to get a booth at the flea market and set up my pampered cheff stuff to maybe get some orders or book parties. I also brough 3 items to raffle off. My husband had to work this weekend so I would be all by myself. Needless to say, It was awful! I was so bored and stuck in the same hot spot for hours. It didn’t help that I did not have many customers. I can say I wont do that again! I will have to think of some other way to raise the money. Because I had such a poor response to the raffle this weekend, I have to keep selling chance until the end of November to make sure I make a profit. It makes me worry even more that I put out all that money from my “baby account,” and need to replace it. I do not like to lose money! See, I decided to raffle off a 45 quart Yeti cooler ($300 value), a 16gb ipad ($500 value, and a Nikon Prostaff 3x9x50 gun scope($250 value). I have got to sell all my chances or I do not know what I will do knowing I lost all that money.

Besides that stress, my feelings and thoughts were not the best. I came home Sunday and just cried. All that time sitting there, gave me time to think about everything way too much. It was probably a good thing I waited a few days to write about it because it would not have been too good of a post. You just start realizing who is supportive and what friends back up what they say with actions. (let me interject here, that one of my friends came and sat with me most all day Saturday and she will never know hoe thankful I was for her and her sacrifice!!! I also had a sweet cousin checking on me!)  It’s just disappointing to realize that strangers have done more at times. I don’t mean to be negative and its not directed at any one person, and I am not saying this to guilt anyone into being more supportive, but I guess it just makes you feel even more isolated because most people have no idea what its like or how it feels. On the other hand, I can see how people are busy and some do not know how to handle the situation/conversation. I mean, if I had never gone through this, I may not have ever known how to be supportive of a friend that was going through it. It’s a tough issue for some and I realize that it can make them uncomfortable.

I also really wanted to question God this weekend. I think every pregnant woman and child (yes, I said child because it seemed like half of the teenage population was pregnant) came to the flea market. The question I kept repeating to Gad was not why I wasn’t pregnant and they were, but rather, why does my journey to becoming a mom have to be so difficult? It would be so nice to not have to work so hard, go to all the appointments, take all the medicine, save all the money, do all the paperwork/home studies/jump through all the hoops if we choose adoption, etc. I just don’t know what lesson I am supposed to be learning right now. It could be so many different things because I am not perfect. I just wish I knew the bigger picture. I guess I need to find peace again with the journey and do what is asked of me knowing that He will provide a child in His way and in His time.

Been Busy

I know I haven’t updated in a little while. I have just been rather busy. The last artificial insemination did not take so on my day 3 (Oct 3^rd) I started another round of Chlomid. I called and set up my next appt for artificial insemination for Monday, October 15th. We have also gotten results from my husband’s semen analysis. We have a couple of questions about it but were pleased with the results. His concentration of sperm had gone down to less than 2 million and should be at least 20 million. Even though the concentration went down, the quality of the sperm went up. A manual motility test was run this time and it showed that he had 10% in the rapid progression motility category and 15% in the slow progression motility category. That means he has 25% that are swimming toward an egg! His first test he had 0%, 16.3% on the second, and 6.1% the third time. So this analysis has had the highest so far. Since we had a little improvement in quality, we decided to buy another month worth of supplements while we wait to talk back to his doctor and mine. We also got more defined morphology (their formation) on this test. It showed that he had 20% normal forms. So I guess our next step is to talk to my doctor about our chances if we continue with artificial insemination or if I should go ahead and schedule a consultation with a clinic that performs In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).

            We haven’t made a definite decision about which route we are taking…IVF versus Adoption. In the meantime, we are just raising money to fund either choice. I have had a few offers to do Pampered Chef parties and I got commission from two orders a couple weeks ago. I also have three starting next week. I started my Pampered Chef website back up and hope to net some orders online or do some Facebook online parties. I also sold some baked goods on Monday to some offices and did pretty well. My next adventure is the local flea market this weekend. I will make some contacts for Pampered Chef and hopefully sell some chances on some prizes like Ipads, yeti coolers, gun scopes, etc. I did the math the other day and if we want to pay for this within a year and not have to get a loan, we need to raise an extra $1800 a month, which is $60 a day. I am determined to start reaching this goal. I may be looking for a part time job but we will see what comes….

            I want to make sure I say that I am so thankful for the friends that have committed to helping me this way. They have helped me in such big ways. It felt so nice to enter a friends order and then drive straight to the pharmacy to get two medications and knowing that she just made me enough commission to pay for it! I am blessed to have some friends that are so selfless to give of their time. I know that some people feel uncomfortable asking people to buy something but they put their feelings aside and did it for me. I just hope that one day I am able to help return the favor to someone that is in this same position.  So, I say a big THANK YOU to everybody. Keep us in your thoughts and send up all the prayers you can spare!