The wait is over!

Whether it was the acupuncture or nature that got things flowing, I don't know and frankly don't care. The important things is we are well on our way to an egg retrieval. Aunt Flow made her appearance on Sunday and on Monday I gave myself my first hormone shot. This of course after a scare that we may not be able to move forward because they found a cyst on my left ovary at my suppression appointment that was not there before. It was potentially another blow, but we prevailed and all was good. Got the call Tuesday we were good to go...Yay!

Here we are on day three of my hormone shots and day two of my new herbal "tea". Just when I thought the taste could not get any worse...it did. That's ok though, anything to have a successful IVF treatment...right? In approximately 12-14 days from Monday we will have an egg retrieval! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers all continues to go well.

A special thanks to all of our friends and family for all of the prayers throughout this year as we have gone through this process. A very special thanks to God for providing us with the financial means to be able to do all of this and all the many blessings He has given us, even if at times they didn't seem like blessings. Looking back I now know they were blessings and that there is a reason for everything and the timing just wasn't right.

And now we wait...and wait...and wait...

The title kind of sounds like I am in the "two week wait" mode again, but unfortunately I am not. FYI, in the infertility world, the two week wait is the two weeks that you have to wait once your fertilized eggs have been implanted for IVF or once the sperm has been injected for an IUI, to take a pregnancy test. Having already gone through one round of IUI I can tell you how excruciating that two period is.

Why then am I waiting? Because we cannot start the process of IVF until my cycle starts. I cannot start my stem drugs until day 1 or day 2 of my cycle. I thought that I would have started on Monday the 23, but alas it still had not come. Where are you Aunt Flow??? The one time in my life that I have wished her to come, she doesn't! I know some of you are thinking and hoping that I am pregnant, well...that is not to be either. I took a pregnancy test on Wednesday and it was negative. At this point, I am not a big fan of those things. They are too disappointing.

I am frustrated, very frustrated. We are in a holding pattern and I have no control over it. Thankfully the acupuncturist gave me some other needles yesterday when I went to see him to hopefully get things flowing...literally. I am really crossing my fingers that it worked and I will start some time this weekend.

Yum, yum, you know you want some???

As promised, I have finally taken some pictures of the most wonderful Chinese herbal "tea". It's honestly hard to tell how disgusting this stuff looks from the pictures, but really it looks like dirt, smells like dirt, and well...taste like dirt. I actually believe there is dirt in in, haha.

The tea in its package and in the glass that I "shoot" it in. Here you can not quite capture the essence of the tea and how disgusting it looks, smells and taste. But I promise it is disgusting!

In this photo it kind of looks like strong coffee with a bit of cream. At first it kind of taste like that, and then it hits you. The best comparison I can give it is the Beverly Coke that you can taste at the World of Coke. For most of the Atlantians out there, you know how bad that taste. This is worse!

Now, who said that they wanted some???

Acupuncture and Herbal Tea

I have been wanting to write about my acupuncture appointments and the herbal tea, but have been putting it off, because I wanted to get a picture of the tea. So it seems I can't remember to get that picture, so I decided to go ahead and blog about and hope to give you picture later. Why is the picture so important you ask? Ohhh because you cannot understand how WONDERFUL it is without seeing it. More on that later.

My first acupuncture appointment was pretty uneventful. It was a lot of talking about my history and everything we had gone through thus far and about only 15 minutes of actual treatment. My second appointment was an hour or so of treatment where I fell asleep and felt very relaxed afterward. My acupuncturist also gave me my first helping of my own personal herbal "tea". Tea is in quotation because you can hardly call it tea that we are use to. It's about 4 oz and it is not a tea you sip or enjoy. You shoot it and take it with a chaser. It looks like baby poop, and well, taste like you might imagine baby poop would taste. It isn't pleasant AT ALL and I get the great joy of drinking it three times a day! If I come out of this pregnant, then it will so be worth it and I will quickly forget the horrible taste.

My third appointment was the beginning of my IVF treatment. They do something totally different the 5 weeks leading up to egg retrieval. I was on my stomach and he put a couple of needles near my ankles and a couple on each of my caves. He also put a few on my back. He then attached electric probes on the needles to give extra stimulation. He would turn it to my uncomfortable point and then turn it down slightly. I laid there for about 15 minutes before he came back in and did the same thing, because you get desensitized to the feeling. I again laid there for an additional 15 minutes and I was done. Every appointment will be the same from here on out until egg implantation. The evening before egg implantation I will go in and they will do a special treatment and a hour after my egg implantation I will go back to have another special treatment.

Here's praying to all of this working and a successful IVF procedure and having a baby in 9-10 months!

Traditional Chinese Medicine here we come!

To start this blog I first have to thank God for putting in my heart to start this blog. Everything happens for a reason, and if it were not for this blog and outlet, I would not be writing this current blog post. With that said...

I have to thank a friend of mine who read my previous post for turning me onto Acupuncture and Infertility. She sent me an article, which you can read here http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/health/traditional-chinese-medicine-more-than-doubles-fertility-rates-western-meds-not-so-much/ about how acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine has proven to decrease infertility rates. This article sent me on a day search of related articles and further research on the topic. What I learned? China has the lowest infertility rates in the world. Study after study has proven that with acupuncture and Chinese herbs women who have had years of infertility, and many failed IUIs and IVFs have gotten pregnant naturally and have been successful getting pregnant with IUI and IVF when previously they were not. I of course immediately went looking for an acupuncturist in GA who specializes and is board certified to do acupuncture and prescribe herbal medicines. Yes, there are people out there who practice that are not board certified. There are 2 in the state of GA.(http://www.metroacupuncture.com/ and http://atlanta-acupuncture.net/). I chose to go to Mark Schwartz at Buckhead Acupuncture.

I am excited to say that my first appointment is tomorrow and that I have found new hope where hope was all lost. Thank you Kristi for directing me this and giving me new hope!

Officially Depressed!

Today we were back at Reproductive Biology Associates (RBA) for another procedure. This was actually an ultrasound where the doctor poured sterile water into my uterus to be sure there was nothing going on in my uterus to keep me from getting pregnant. The prognosis...not sure. There is something in my uterus that he cannot detect. He saw during surgery a few months back and couldn't figure it out, and could not determine anything looking at the ultra sound today.

What does this mean?

Well, that I cried a lot today. Just another blow to my dream of becoming pregnant. First, my uterus is not curved once, but twice! Not typical of the average woman...of course! Nothing else with my reproductive organs has been normal, why would my uterus???? This could be the cause of what the doctor is seeing. Worse case scenario? It is another form of endometriosis which is really bad and could most likely prevent me from getting pregnant, even with IVF. AND of course as we walk out of the office today, in walks a freaking pregnant woman! I swear, if I see another pregnant woman or hear of another friend or acquaintance getting pregnant I am going to scream! Ok, maybe not. I am happy for my friends and acquaintances who are getting pregnant, but please forgive me if I am not overflowing with joy. Honestly, I am jealous and wish it was me. This is the hardest thing I have ever gone through and unfortunately do not see it coming to an end soon.

The doctors suggestion?

Go ahead and go through with IVF, think positive, pray and hopefully this mass is nothing and we get pregnant.

Lots of updates

I haven't done a good job of keeping this blog up. It has been null and void actually. I started back when Luke and started dating and stopped updating right when we hit the year mark. A lot has happened since then. We got married, got pregnant, had a miscarriage and now are struggling with infertility. Which brings me to today. I started thinking, that as a way to cope I should start journal-ling, then I remembered the blog I started awhile back. Thinking that if I blog, not only can all our friends and family who want updates can stay updated, hopefully this will bring much needed support for me and to other out there dealing with infertility as well.

So let's go back a bit. Luke and I got married on July 17, 2010. On our "honeymoon" (we didn't actually go on a honeymoon) we got pregnant. Not trying to get pregnant, just got lucky. Since then, I really know how lucky we really were. After getting over the shock of being pregnant, just 8 weeks and 5 days later we lost it. After coping with that loss we began to try again. Every month we were hopeful and then disappointed when we didn't get a positive. My OB had me on Clomid for 3 months to better our chances, during this 3 month period I started to notice my left ovary hurting all the time. Several ultra sounds later and it not going down he started to suspect endormetriosis (I had never had any previous symptoms). He thus sent me to an infertility doctor.

Introducing Dr. Slayden and RBA (Reproductive Biology Associates)! Dr. Slayden confirmed the diagnosis of Endometriosis and we started on the road of infertility.

Summer came and Luke and I celebrated our 1st year anniversary in Jamaica. The week after we came back I had surgery to remove the cyst on my left ovary (the cause of my pain), the cyst on my right ovary and open up my right Fallopian tube. Which we had learned earlier was blocked.

After surgery we started on a regimen of 3 months of Depolupron (sp?) to shut my system down and allow my body to recover. Then we started the shots to get my ovaries to produce eggs. We had decided to due an IUI over IVF because of cost. We were very hopeful.

We got 8 follicles! Luke had to drive up from Alabama and I was inseminated twice to increase my chances of getting pregnant. I also has to give myself progesterone every morning and wear estrogen patches every day for 2 weeks. The period after insemination is commonly know as the 2 week wait in the infertility world. The hardest and longest 2 weeks of my life!

Being very hopeful and suspecting we were pregnant, on Monday, December 19 I woke up at 4 AM to take a test and it was negative. Which brings me to where we are now.

We now will be doing IVF and we start everything over. Here's to a new year and hopefully new additions to our family! Stay turned as I will continue update now, and hopefully this will turn from an infertility blog to a baby blog!