Some Old, Some New

      Yet again it has been awhile since my last update. I had finals to finish up for school and little energy left to do much else. This go around I did a double dose of Femara which I was smart enough to take at night so I didn’t pass out for hours during the middle of the day. That was the old part – taking some pills for 5 days. The new part – injections. I was rather anxious about this part. Even though my husband is a paramedic the office insisted I come in to learn how to give them to myself. It wasn’t anything that Jeremy had not already told me or I had not read and it was a ridiculous waste of money. Nothing I can do about that now. When it came time for the first shot Jeremy was not home and I was working on a paper due later that day which made me even more nervous. Jeremy walked me thorough it on the phone and I was so shaken up that I spilled the dissolvent, it felt like it took me forever to get the medication mixed. When it came time to actually inject, I hung up the phone and said a quick prayer. I worked myself up so much that when it was actually over I thought “That’s it?” Thankfully Jeremy was able to do the next couple so I was more comfortable with them by the time I had to fly solo. We had our normal ultrasound on Friday. I have to thank my doctor’s office again because they squeezed me in between patients because they know how important it is that it is done on specific days and early so the results can be faxed to my RE. I tried not to get myself too excited and at first I really thought it was not going to end well. There were less follicles than previously but there were larger so that was good, but the ones on the right ovary were not quite “ripe.” However, on the left we had one that was just the size we like to see 20 mm. That meant one more shot, the trigger shot. Now we wait yet again.

      On a related note I would like to draw attention to Family Act of 2011, a Senate bill create to aid families with infertility cost, specifically IVF. You can find more information here. I encourage you to contact you Senators and ask for their support of this bill, because 1 and 8 couples suffer from infertility and that means someone you know is living with this daily.

      Also a well know infertility advocate was feature on the Boston news, discussing the fact that infertility does not only affect older women. You can find the video here. I like to point out her correction; she still needs to save $18,000 for her IVF cycle with an egg donor not $1,800 as the segment says.       

Medic! Guest Post from My Husband

How many times have you heard that phrase? It’s in practically every military movie. Medics are called when people are injured, sick, and/or at the end of their rope. We are fixers, there aren’t many things we aren’t trained to handle. When Jenni and I discovered having baby wasn’t going to just happen the easy way, I wanted to cry MEDIC! There really isn’t anything to make the news come easy.
    It
Makes
You
Question

EVERYTHING.

Your mind becomes flooded with questions:
“How can this happen to us? What did we do to deserve this? How much is this going to cost? What are our options? How will this affect our relationship? Where is God in this? Does this mean never or will it get better? Where is the justice?”

I can’t even begin to comprehend what Jenni’s going through……

SO…

We began our journey in infertility. At first it didn’t seem real, almost like we were in a fog. Then the tests came and the fog lifted quickly.  Jenni became a pin cushion and blood was drawn, medications were injected, and she became an excel champion tracking all sorts of things.  I felt helpless, trying to offer moral support and empathy. I wanted to take her place seeing her heartbreak daily because of the unknown. I’ve learned listening isn’t enough, communication is the real cure. At first my words escaped me, Jenni wondered if I cared…which I did, but sometimes my off colored humor didn’t help. I still managed to get her to smile, that beautiful smile I fell in Love with. There are times though when all the pieces fall apart. I’ve learned that sometimes you have to let the pieces fall because there is nothing you can do to stop them from falling, but the greatest thing to do is to be there to help put the pieces back one piece at a time. One day we will be stronger because of this……
“God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain” C.S. Lewis
“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” C.S. Lewis

Hate

Last week my husband picked up a package at the post office, it wasn't very big but it held a lot of hope and cost us almost all our savings. It contained injectables for this next cycle. A little scary. You may remember last cycle did not go well and the nurse told me we might be going straight to the injectables because it is uncommon to not to respond to Femara. Well, it ended up being a combination of the two. I’ll be taking the double dose of Femara and hMG injections, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I am grateful they have decided to take an aggressive approach, but it makes infertility a bit more real. This is not going to be fixed with a pill and one shot.  At minimum it is going to require several shots and pills, shots that I am at some point going to have to administrate myself. I very thankful to have a paramedic for a husband, he could do this with his eyes close (although I won’t let him). But because he is a paramedic at some point he will not be home when I need a shot. So, later this week I’ll make a trip up to the RE’s office to learn how to inject myself, crazy. I realize that there are people that inject themselves everyday with lifesaving medications, this is different. There is no guarantee, no certainty, this is not going to directly benefit my health. Again, I come back to the question, “Is it worth it?” And again, for now it is. For now I’m prepared to do this, I want to do this.

As we keep running this race, I try not to look behind me and see if endometriosis is catching up. After this week I don’t have to guess. It is gaining ground and pulling out all the stops. I have miss school, I have lied in bed curled up in ball, spent more time in the bathroom than out of it, built up a tolerance to my pain medication, and have kept a small hold on my sanity. To add to the stress it’s finals week.  I really dislike infertility. I hate endometriosis.