Back to school...

It's been a while since our last post, and we have lots of updates...

I'm back to school now and trying to adjust to not getting to use the restroom when I want to, getting up early etc. Scotty is in Haiti right now on a mission trip with a group of guys including his dad, brother, and best friend. They are building houses and staying at an orphanage. When he gets back I'm sure he'll send an update telling all about his trip.

We found out on the tenth that our cycle of IVF didn't work. It was very difficult news to hear since it was such a long road. Now, we wait a couple months for my body to readjust and get back to normal then have some testing done to see what went wrong. Our doctor is shocked that we didn't have a successful cycle and thinks that there must be something going on with me. He has a few ideas in mind, so we'll do a sonogram, bloodtest, and biopsy. The best case scenario is that we find what the issue is, and maybe has been all along. Then we'll have a better idea of where to go next.

So to keep me company while Scotty is gone, my best friend Whitney came down! We went to paint pottery at practically pikasso with my sister and friend Jess.



Whit and I were able to fit in a quick trip to Magic kingdom and MGM....




She's back home now, too short of a trip. But I am lucky to have such a good friend!

5 Funfilled Years!

On Thursday, August 5th Scotty and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. What an amazing journey it's been so far. I feel very lucky and blessed to have found such an awesome guy at such a young age. Anyways, we're 5 years in and loving it!! Here is a pic from our dinner at the melting pot, there are two reasons why you don't go there often. Obvious is the price, but the second is how much freaking food you eat!!! Ohhhhhh it was SOOOOOOO good!

On our way...



Dessert....yummmm



Love you all!
Tera

What a week!

So it seems like just the other day Scotty and I were standing speechless in front of the large box of medicine that had arrived. Also on the counter was a calendar for July that had everyday full of things to do, remember, and inject. Now, it is the week after the transfer. We waited for this day for months, years if you count from when we decided to start a family. We are both in disbelief.

The transfer went perfectly. They were nice enough to give me a valium to relax (although I was much calmer having done a practice run-mock transfer-and knowing what to expect). Too bad we waited for about an hour before going back and the valium was gone by then! I didn't think I would be emotional-ha, that's funny- but it was a very surreal moment. I've been told that you can see your embryo being placed, which is an incredible experience. Scotty did see this, I was having a hard time picturing it, I was looking for perfect round little things on the sonogram. What we saw was...."See that little dash? Those are your babies". What really hit me was while I was being prepped they brought in what looked like an incubator, glowing green and humming loudly. That was where our embryos had been stored for the last week. I guess I didn't realize that they would be in the same room with me, duh.

So now, we wait. I have a couple appointments over the next couple weeks, and a pregnancy test at some point! When we know we will send out a blog/email to let you all know.

Other than that, we are just wrapping up our summer. Scotty's been working of course, enjoying having a clean house because I have time to clean! I just met with Matt, the History teacher from my team at school who is also a dog trainer. He is helping Scotty and I gain back control of our house from Sera and Midas. The verdict is, Sera is going to be easy to train, Midas will be the challenge. Not surprised!!

We'd love to hear from all of you guys, let us know what's happening in your lives. Thank you for continuing to pray for us, we still have a lot that needs to happen before we find out. Most of which is out of our control now and we're relying fully on God!

Love to all of you!

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 :)