Here we go!

It's finally here. Tomorrow morning we go in to do our aspiration. For those who missed it, that's when the docs spend 10 minutes time and get PAID bookoo bucks for it! We start by going in to the doctors office at 6:45 in the AM and I get left in the waiting room all by my lonesome for a couple hours. Tera will go back when we get there and start pre-op. Being that she hasn't eaten that morning, they will give her an IV with fluids (mmm sounds like a good substitute to me). After that is gone, they will sedate her and go in.

...skip a few details you probably don't want to know about...

After they take the eggs out, she'll move to recovery. Once I hear she's OK, I can go back and stay with her through the rest of the recovery process. This is a huge milestone, mostly for Tera because she is off of the stimulation meds, which were in great numbers and pretty painful.

If you've noticed on Facebook, we haven't announced what we are doing. But those who do know can figure out what some of the posts mean....the numbers have been the number of shots she has done so far...we are currently at 62!!

After tomorrow's surgery, we will head home and they've said that Tera will sleep most of the rest of the day. During the next few days our embryos will be in the lab maturing, we will find out Monday afternoon how many were retrieved. They retrieve follicles, which are covered in cells so at first glance it may look like 10, but there may actually be 8 or 13... We are using another procedure called ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection) where they will inject one sperm into one embryo, and wait for it to fertilize. On Wednesday, they'll give us a call and let us know if ours are ready. If they are mature and we have a good grade 1 embryo that is ready we'll do the transfer on Thursday, if they need more time it will be on Saturday.

We decided to only insert 1 embryo. With our age and health our success percentage is high (88%) and neither Tera or I feel like we would want to start with two. There are some other reasons why we chose to go with one, but we won't bore you with those. RMG (Reproductive Medicine Group) STRONGLY suggests one, because pregnancy is the goal, not multiples. They brought up a good point, which was another reason we chose one, twins are a high risk pregnancy. Although, we have a good friend (who has been an amazing support to Tera) that did IVF and has beautiful twin boys!!

We won't know the date of the pregnancy test, and when we do know I don't think we'll tell anyone....that way the news can be just between us for a little while-and we can share with our friends and family when we're ready :)

We were fortunate enough to be invited to spend the weekend on Clearwater beach at the Sheraton Sand Key this weekend with Cox Fire. It was a sales retreat and I'm a salesman so there you go! It was a really awesome weekend, and perfect timing given the stress we have both been under. Thanks to my folks for having us!!

As we are approaching the home stretch in this process, we really cherish your prayers. We both have felt God immensely throughout this whole process, and there is no way we would be here if it wasn't for Him. He deserves all the glory! Please pray for this week, that the doctors would be successful, Tera would be calm, and that we would be on our way to parenthood!

Love and blessings to you all!

P.S. Tera asked me to include this excerpt from a song and a scripture that has really helped her through this.

"I know you’re broken, you’re busted wide open
You’ve fallen to pieces and you feel there’s nothing left you can hope in
But I’ll hold you together, we’ll stand the weather
Cause I paid the price for you and I won’t let you go, no never

- From Finding Favour’s Song – “I am”

Psalm 29:4
The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

Holy Needles!

Today marks day 8 of injections, which means I have done 15 so far....16 by the end of today. We are finding our niche, and by that I mean I am "manning up" and Scotty is becoming quite the nurse. They have been really inconsistent...some hurt, some don't. Some bruise, some don't....same with bleeding. It is getting better though, really because I think now I know what to expect, which is half the nervousness for me.

We received all of our medications in the mail while I was in NY...and there was A TON! Since our last post we also went to our injection class, it was a little frightening because we (really I since I didn't look at them in the package that came to our house) saw the needles for the first time. The class did help a lot, and I left feeling much more confident about the upcoming shots.

In short, I will do this injection (Lupron-just a hormone...Yay for Scotty!) twice a day for two weeks. Then Lupron will only be in the evenings, and we will add two new shots. This will start next Friday with my first appointment for bloodwork and ultrasound. This is when I will start my stimulation days...which means no physical activity since my ovaries will be getting ready...TMI? LOL. Email me if you want more details :)

I was lucky enough to do my first shot while on vacation in Maggie Valley, NC with the Cox Family! I have had several friends tell me they aren't nearly as bad as they seem, and for me so far they aren't. BUT.....these are the baby needles....there are bigger ones to come! We'll cross that bridge when we get there :)

Here are a couple pics from vacation....it was a beautiful cabin with an amazing view. We also did lots of fun things too :) This picture is of Scotty and I at the Biltmore in Asheville. What a breathtaking "house". It was incredible! And we ended the fun day with Chris and Jan by going to dinner and seeing Eclipse.



This is Scotty, Ron, Austin, and Grady at the bottom of a waterfall. I believe this was the day we went to Cherokee and went horseback riding.



One of the first things we did was go to a town where there were lots of really old buildings, school house, church, even a wealthy families house. The boys enjoyed the creek in front of the house, and we also had a picnic on the front porch.



I'll try to be better about blogging. It seems to take forever because our wifi isn't working....so I am "borrowing" from the neighbors. My computer is very fussy and often freezes during picture downloads, and they save in a file that blogger doesn't accept so I have to convert all pics I include....oh well. Not much else to do now!

Again, we so appreciate your prayers. We both know God has a perfect plan for us, we'd like to follow it exactly! Special prayer would be appreciated for me and my emotions....Scotty has been wonderful with his new multi-personalities wife :)

Wedding, Wedding, Wedding!!

I am heading home today from visiting my New York family and being in my cousin Melissa's wedding. All of our posts are In Vitro related because I don't ever think our work/home work/home schedules are exciting enough to blog about...but thought this time you guys might want to hear about us, not just our IVF experience.

Both my mom and dad grew up in upstate New York, just a short drive from Canada. It is beautiful here, I would move here if it weren't for the 6 month blistering winters!! Here are a couple pictures that I have taken so far.






It was a crazy week with the wedding on Saturday, but everything turned out beautifully! The pic above is of me and the bride at her bachelorette party, we had a great time! I have a couple wedding pics that are stolen because I didn't take any of the ceremony. I was escorted by Melissa and Jim's son Brody, also, here is a pic of him in his element....







Long flight home today, but I am very ready to see Scotty and puppies! I am sure Scotty is ready to see me too, and to take over dog duty (no pun intended!! )

We are headed to North Carolina for vacation with Scotty's family, we can't wait!! Will post blog/pics soon!

xoxo....Tera

The Next Step

Sorry it's been so long since our last update, things have been slooowwwww going. I am in New York right now for my cousins wedding, and Scotty is at home manning the fort (and all the dogs)!

The only news that we have is that we now have a schedule in place. (Assuming my body cooperates). I started birth control to get me on a schedule that works for the doctor and blood labs. It also makes sure that we don't inadvertently get pregnant while on hormone injections, which would be really bad for the baby.

Next Wednesday we will go to the class that will teach Scotty how to give me the injections, which will be interesting to say the least. After that we will start Lupron injections on July 3rd which will last for about a week. I don't know the simple names of the other drugs, just the 27 letter names that came on our pharmacy bill, but those will last until the end of July.

Once we get on that schedule our aspiration (retrieving the embryos) will be somewhere around July 29 with the transfer five days after that (beginning of August). It will be exactly 2 weeks after the day of the transfer that we will be going to take a pregnancy test!! If I'm pregnant I will continue on the injections to help sustain the pregnancy :)

So, we will try to update more often than once a month!! We appreciate prayers. It's not over yet so keep them coming. Love you all!

And now, we wait.......

So I am thinking our posts will slow down for a little while. There are a couple reasons why:

First-We have all of our pre-testing done. Everything was normal and healthy, yahoo! Well, we haven't heard anything and they said, "no news is good news" so there you have it.

Second-Our next appointment is on May 10th to sign consent forms. This is where we will start paying for our procedures. When I set up this appointment we put down our deposit.....kind of exciting, we are locked in! This appointment will also be an ultrasound to measure my uterus :-D TMI? Don't read the next sentence then! It is basically measuring how deep they will need to go to place the embryos...when we get there. She (the coordinator who surely has had this done since she can say what it feels like, lol) said that this doesn't hurt, feels like an annual exam. I'll let you know if they are liars!

Third-We aren't really sure when the actual aspiration will happen, and the embryo transfer 3 or 5 days later because that depends on my cycle-which is irregular. Reproductive medicine group are very accommodating and have offered to start my injections throughout May and do my procedures in June because I am a teacher. This would be wonderful but......one of my longest and best friends (and cousin) is getting married in June in New York and I am the Maid of Honor. That being said, it could have happened in June if my cycle worked out perfectly, but they don't allow you to travel while you are doing your injections or a few weeks after your aspiration and transfer for obvious reasons. (Blood work, ultrasounds, lastly and my favorite....pregnancy tests!!!) Since their lab is closed for 3 weeks in July (who does that) it looks like I will be doing the injections in July and hopefully the procedures in August. My luck-the first week of school :)

Until May 10th.....