Hawaii

32 Days!!!

I feel like a kid counting down the days until Christmas that is how excited I am about this trip! I'm excited for so many reasons. First and most obvious, its a much needed vacation that will come after a very busy spring for both myself and Todd. Second, its conveniently just before my intern starts for 3 months and about a month and a half before Todd leaves for deployment. And last but not least it is an absolute celebration of the blessing that God has given us. This trip would absolutely not be possible if we had to go through with IVF.  This is our Babymoon, our last big trip as just the two of us, or 4 of us as we can't forget our wonderful furbabies :) :)

The details? We leave Thursday May 19 and will fly to Honolulu. We'll get there pretty late Thursday so not much will happen that day. We have all day Friday and Saturday to spend in Honolulu where we will go to Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, The North Shore and go to a luau before boarding the Norwegian "Pride of America" Saturday night for a 7 day cruise where we will spend 2 days in Maui, 1 day each in Hilo and Kona and 2 days in Kauai before returning to Honolulu and heading back to Rapid City.  We're still researching all the islands and what we want to do but I know we plan to get to all the National Parks since we still have our National Parks pass.  I want to do the bike ride around Haleakala Crater, spend lots of time in the sun and eat my weight in fresh pineapple.  I have several co-workers and patients who have been to Hawaii so we have gotten lots of ideas but if you've been and have a "must see" please let me know!!

Can't wait to post pictures when we get back!

10 Weeks!

Yesterday I had this great post about our upcoming trip to Hawaii all typed and then Blogger went and deleted it before I could post it. So instead of re-typing it today I decided to just write about our 10 week appointment we had today.
I have to take yet another moment to say how much I LOVE my doctor.  When Lyndee called me back she told me he was already running behind but he still took his time with us and answered our questions and talked about things with us without making us feel rushed. He tried to hear the heartbeat with the doppler first but he couldn't get it which is fine because he said it isn't as likely to hear it before 12 weeks with the doppler but he wanted to try. Fortunately he didn't pick it up because then we got to have another ultrasound! All the rooms were busy so he had to use literally the oldest ultrasound machine I have ever seen! It was like an antique! Either way, it got the job done- we saw our little blob bug again. It was actually moving its arms which was cool to see and still had a perfect beating heart :) Sadly, it will be 9 LONG weeks before we see baby Saksa again at the very long, level 2 ultrasound on June 13. At least at my next appointment we'll be able to hear the heartbeat. Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful appointment and he said everything looked good.  He gave me the okay to continue cycling this spring (YAY!!) This has been an area of argument for me and Todd because Todd doesn't want me cycling with my clip in pedals (refer to post last summer when I crashed and broke 4 ribs) but I refuse to ride a road bike without clip in pedals- yes, I'm aware that this is slightly ridiculous but if you cycle at all you understand. He also gave us all the travel tips for our vacation. I love that he's very concerned for his patients and gives them all the info but also tries to not make you stress over little things.
For a funny side story from the appointment. The room we were taken to today was the room Dr Diehl does the IUI's in. Todd was never there for the actual procedure so I told him as we were sitting there "this was where our baby was conceived!" Its nice that we can laugh about it :)

Time to let the cat out of the bag

Several of my (very small group) of readers have noticed the drastic decline in my blogging. Yes, there is a reason and many of you already know because I wanted to make sure I actually TOLD you and you didn't read it on my blog or facebook (this is not facebook worthy yet either) but if you are in that unfortunate group that I have not personally talked to don't be offended, you're still ahead of the game.... I'm PREGNANT!!!


Pause for shock to settle. Take a deep breath ;)


As you know, my last appointment with Dr. Smith ended with her telling us it was way past time to move on to IVF. However, we had already started our last cycle for our 5th IUI, second with injectable meds and she said to finish the cycle and "pray for a miracle" because we only had about a 10% chance of it working. So pray we did. But we also got our finances in order (since we were going to be OOP for IVF), made our plans to travel to Denver the weekend of my birthday and made our appointments at our main RE's office. Fast forward to the week of the IUI. Everything went wrong. I had to stim 4 days longer because my ovaries, of course, were not responding. Todd's schedule (and mine) was a mess and we were stressing over whether or not the IUI was actually going to happen. Dr. Diehl was scheduled to be out of the clinic the day the IUI actually took place and he GRACIOUSLY came in JUST to do my IUI, even joking that he had "the most fertile women in the clinic" bless the sperm first. It was an emotional day. After an IUI you have to lay on the table for about 15minutes before leaving and after Dr. Diehl left the room I started crying and praying. I remember telling myself, and God that I was done. That I couldn't keep doing these IUI cycles. My body and mind were tired of the whole process. I put that cycle in God's hands and just asked for His will. We were prepared to move on to IVF if it failed and if that was His plan but I couldn't keep doing what we had been doing for the past 8 months. I felt horrible from the extra days of Gonal F and was very bloated/crampy for about 4 days after. I went about my 2 week wait as normal, not overdoing it but also not having a lot of hope either. I was ready to get it over with and move on. Then the week we'd find out came. I was going to Dallas on Thursday, only 13 days post IUI. I started testing on Monday, negative. I woke up Tuesday and tested, still expecting a negative and literally almost had a heart attack when I saw a faint but definite SECOND LINE! It took everything I had to keep calm, go to work and "patiently" wait until I could call Lyndee...who cried when I told her and said I made her day.  She ordered the HCG blood test and since I conveniently work at the hospital I just ran down to the lab at lunch and had my blood drawn.  The number came back at 34, which is "low" but at 11 days post IUI, not concerning low. She told me to repeat it on Thursday to make sure it doubled.  Literally 30 minutes before we left for the airport Lyndee called and said that the number was 131!! So then we waited 2 LONG weeks before we got to see Dr. Diehl and do an ultrasound. Seeing Dr Diehl and Lyndee, with Todd there, for an appointment that didn't include scanning my ovaries or adjusting my meds was amazing.  We laughed and joked and we saw one little bug with a perfect beating heart that looked like a lightening bug.  Everything looked perfect and we have continued in our cautious state of shock since.

So now you're probably asking yourself- when are you due? how far along are you? how are you feeling?
I'm 9 1/2 weeks along and due on November 6, 2011-my father in laws birthday.  I felt amazing from weeks 4-6. I had a ton of energy but was super hungry all the time and life went on as usual. Weeks 6-9 the nausea and food aversions set in as well as the fatigue. Now don't get me wrong, I AM NOT COMPLAINING!! When I say nausea...I mean if I didn't eat when I was hungry I got nauseated and was only able to eat very specific foods because the thought of some foods made me feel sick. I haven't thrown up (thank God!) When I say food aversions nothing has made me want to gag but some things I usually love just haven't sounded appetizing too me. Gum is the weirdest one! I usually chew gum because I have a fear of having bad breath around my patients but gum has made me want to gag so I suck on small pieces of candy. I've also had some headaches and have felt tired but I've told everyone that as long as I can make it through my day and can do what I need/want to do then I will not complain. It has been very manageable and I'm very thankful. This week I feel I'm turning the corner on the first trimester (knocks on wood) I'm still tired, and currently battling a cough/chest cold but am feeling 10x better overall so hopefully this is the upswing. Dr Diehl has given me the OK to keep running/working out as long as I'm not spotting, getting exhausted or getting dehydrated and I've been able to maintain my usual routine with no problems and feel so much better after a run.

God has proven to us once again that we are not in control and He is. Even dealing with infertility we tried to plan our IVF cycle around deployment and what would "work best for us". We're still not sure how deployment is going to work. Best case scenario, Todd will only deploy for half the time and be home in late October. Worse case scenario Todd will be sent home for about 2 weeks to be here for the birth but then will have to go back. I'm honestly not worried. God is faithful and has shown that time and time again  so I will just trust Him.

Well this blog is long enough. I promise I will start blogging more regularly now. We go to the doctor on Monday so I'll update about that. AND we planned a big Hawaiian vacation for May that I'll blog about another time!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your continuous love, support and prayers through this journey and your continued prayers through this pregnancy.

God listens and is still performing miracles!

Birthday Weekend

Friday I turned 27 years old. Sometimes I can't believe I'm at this point in my life. I've been married for almost 3 year, out of college for 5 years, have my Master's and have been working as an OT for almost 3 years and just over a year ago started the journey to make an infertile person a mom. I look at my life and can't help but wonder...when did I get here?? It still feels like last year Todd and I celebrated my 21st birthday and here we are at 27!

Here's my birthday weekend re-cap:

Like any good 40+ hour a week worker, I took my birthday off..and Monday, just for good measure :) I tried my hardest to sleep in but that lasted until about 7:30 so I got up, ate some breakfast and went for a run. For some reason a good birthday run always feels good. Like every year I have to prove that I'm still going to be a runner this year and can still go the distance. I think birthdays are more of a "New Years" for me. Todd was SUPPOSED to take Friday off and we were going to go to Denver but he waited a little too long and got scheduled to fly. He was supposed to be home around noon. About 11:00 I decide to get in the shower so that I'm all ready to go when Todd gets home...except we have NO HOT WATER!! I call Todd. No answer. I call my dad. He says it could be the heating element if the water heater isn't leaking water everywhere. No water. I call Todd. No answer. I call Todd again. FINALLY! He answers! I tell him the bad news he says he'll be home in 20min (about 1pm) The plan at that point was to drive up to Spearfish to stay the night and have dinner in Deadwood at 6:30. At 1pm the driveway still needs to be shoveled, we have no hot water and we're an hour away from our destination.  Todd's drives to the electric company to buy a new heating element for the water heater and I get stuck shoveling. Have I ever mentioned how much I HATE shoveling?? It truly is my least favorite chore with mowing in a close second. I think its because 1. I'm from Texas-we don't shovel snow and 2. 6 months of shoveling snow while Todd was deployed last year just made me bitter. Needless to say I was NOT happy about shoveling snow on my birthday. Around 4:00 the water heater is fixed but its going to be over an hour before we know if we have hot water so we drive to Spearfish with the plan to shower at the lodge we were staying at and then head to dinner, which we had to move the reservations back to 7:30 to accommodate our mishap. We stayed at Spearfish Canyon Lodge for the night...the same place we stayed for a weekend before Todd deployed when we went snowmobiling last year. Its a really cute place in the middle of Spearfish Canyon (our absolute favorite place in the Hills) complete with fireplaces in the room. Once we finally got cleaned up (6 hours after I wanted to shower) we made our way to historic Deadwood for dinner at Jake's at the Midnight Star-the casino/restaurant that Kevin Costner owns. It was DELICIOUS! I had a bacon wrapped shrimp, salad, fillet mingon with truffled mashed potatoes and creme brule for dessert! A-mazing! It was getting late by the time we finished dinner so we headed back to the lodge. I tried  my hardest once again to sleep in on Saturday but that lasted until about 8:00 so we got up and went into Spearfish for some breakfast at the Vanilla Bean Bakery-a cute bakery on main street that just so happens to make gluten free muffins, scones, granola and cake.  After a relaxing breakfast and loading the car with GF goodies to take home we headed to do our favorite winter activity-Cross country skiing!! It was absolutely perfect weather for XC skiing! We went for about 2 hours then headed home and ended the night at dinner with 17 of our closest friends.

Great birthday weekend. Here's to my 27th year!

Home Sweet Home!

I'm so very excited to be going home to Dallas this weekend!! If you happen to remember I was supposed to travel to Bismark back in November for a class and it ended up getting cancelled the week of.  My boss had told me to look for another location and fortunately there just happened to be a class in Dallas. With the 1 non-stop flight from Rapid to Dallas daily and the fact that they don't have to pay for a hotel the cost ended up being about the same so the hospital approved for me to go! I travel Thursday, the class is Friday and Saturday and I'll come back on Sunday. Basically, I'm getting PAID to go see my sister for 4 days!! Oh...and I have to sit in a class for 2 days but hey, its TEXAS!!!

In case you happen to be interested its a Fieldwork Educator Certification course.  Being a fieldwork educator is also known as being a Clinical Instructor (CI) or the therapist a student interns with for 3 months, 3 times before graduating from their OT program. You can be a CI without being certified, you just have to have a year of clinical experience but being certified makes you better equipped to be a CI, gives students more confidence in you as their CI and is highly favored by OT programs when choosing where to send students. I'm very excited about this because I LOVE teaching in the clinical setting. I get a student from The University of South Dakota at the end of May so I'll be looking forward to implementing new ideas with them.

So yay for short work week, learning, traveling and getting to do a little pre-birthday celebration with my sister!

Dr Smith

Today was my big appointment with Dr. Smith, my main office RE. She is the big decision maker and the one who does IVF. I was glad that I had the whole day off of work because I was pretty anxious all day waiting for this appointment. I got there early and fortunately they were running ahead of schedule so I was able to spend extra time with her (almost an hour and a half total time). I do love Dr. Smith. She has so much experience in her field, really cares for her patients and is very direct and to the point (which I appreciate).  I sat down in her office for the first half of the appointment and she reviewed my chart and everything we've been doing up to that point with Dr Diehl. Unfortunately, given my age, diagnosis and the amount of treatments we have done thus far she feels like we should have gotten pregnant months ago. Since we're not pregnant and everything is perfect on Todd's end she feels that I either have an egg quality issue or a fertilization issue and strongly recommends that we move onto  IVF after this cycle using the "Long Lupron" Protocol with ICSI (link is to another fertility clinic website, not mine) ICSI is usually used for sperm issues but if our case it would be to test fertilization issues.  If we decide to do IVF before Todd deploys we'll actually start the process pretty soon.

She doesn't think I need to do a lap surgery. She feels I have no real indication for one based on symptoms and other test results.

We are continuing with this IUI which will probably be on Tuesday based on today's ultrasound and how I've responded the last several months. Miracles do happen and we certainly still can get pregnant this month but statistically it's not very likely.

I feel like I have so much information to process. I never thought we'd be at this point.  I was able to talk to Todd right after the appointment but was pretty bummed he couldn't be there. Fortunately, he gets home on Friday.

Why can't failure NOT be an option?

The perfect cycle ended not so perfectly.

Exactly 14 days after our last IUI Aunt Flo decided to make her appearance. Didn't even need blood work to confirm the failure.  Naturally, I called Lyndee to let her know, left her a message and about 15 minutes later I was shocked when Dr. Diehl himself called me back! He sounded genuinely disappointed that I wasn't pregnant.  He wants to start the next cycle the same as the last and do another IUI. I have my appointment with Dr. Smith on Wednesday so she will actually do my ultrasound and adjust my meds this month how she sees fit. I'll also be talking to her about the possibility of doing a lap surgery and doing our IVF consult. It just seems surreal. I never thought we'd be at this point.

Todd is still in Vegas. He was so hopeful for this cycle (as was everyone). Its definitely harder dealing with ANOTHER failed cycle with him so far away. Fortunately for me, work is super busy so I don't have to think about it during the day much.

So what will I do this weekend NOT being pregnant? Drink a lot of coffee. Go for a long run. Deep clean the house. Drink wine.