IVF Update!

I know its been a while since I have updated the blog... Sorry! But honestly nothing has really been going on or changed since my last post besides my belly bloating and looking like I am already pregnant.

I have started my treatment, if you did not get that from my last post. So how my treatment works (I'm not sure if every IVF cycles are the same that's why I referred to it as my treatment) I started on birth control and I took that for just about three weeks. I was put on this to regulate my cycle and to make sure aunt flow didn't show up unexpectedly. About two weeks into taking birth control, I started my first injection. I have to give myself one injection every morning. Along with daily injections, I take baby aspirin (used as a blood thinner), Prenatal Vitamins, and Ovaboost (a natural supplement that helps your ovaries to be healthy). I continue with these medications throughout the rest of my treatment. I also was taking a Zpack for 5 days along with everything else, which is just an easy name for an antibiotic. I have to take that just in case I had any bugs roaming around in my body. Tyk also took this for 5 days.  So from the start of the birth control is when my treatment actually started which means I technically started my IVF treatment about three and a half weeks ago. Tomorrow I have my first ultrasound appointment and blood draw to see how things are looking. I'm actually really excited to go in. I feel like three weeks is a long time to wait and just hope that everything is working properly, but I guess the doctors probably know what they're doing. Hopefully...

At my appointment, the doctor will instruct me on my next injection and the dosage. I do have a tentative plan to start two more injections on Sunday. So that will mean I'll be giving myself three injections a day along with the pills I am currently taking!! Hopefully they won't kill me too bad, I just have to remember that this won't last forever... and IT WILL BE WORTH IT!

Tyker has been so good during this experience. Every morning his is just the sweetest when I get up to do my injection. I always get up first, get everything ready, and then I hear him walking out of the bedroom coming to support me. He always has those sleepy eyes that he can't open because of the light. As I do my injection he just stands and watches. Then as soon as I pull the needle out, he bends down to my belly and blows on the spot where the needle was injected. Honestly its not even necessary to blow on it, but he just wants to help and be apart of the action, and I love him for that!

Another update should be coming soon, I'm sure I'll have news to share after tomorrow!
Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!!!

Love,
Shandee

Let the Fun Begin!

First off I would like to express my appreciation to EVERYONE for your incredible support! I am so overwhelmed by the positive reaction I received from my first post, THANK YOU!!! And my anxiety is finally deciding to take a walk... haha! I'm sure that will get better overtime too.

So this week was pretty crazy with getting everything ready to start the IVF treatment. I had an appointment on Tuesday to do a water ultrasound, which is an ultrasound where they inject water into your uterus during the ultrasound. This makes it more clear for the doctor to see whats going on, and it helps to see if there is any problems that need to be taken care of before we start the process. I also had to have a biopsy done on my uterus during this appointment too. HOLY COW did that hurt!!! They tell you to take 800 Mg of ibuprofen before your appointment, which just doesn't cut it for what they are about to do to you. During the procedure they literally just cut a piece of your uterus out like its fruit or something. It's okay though, I know it will be worth it. They will test the sample to make sure that my uterus lining is healthy and let us know the results this week.

Wednesday I had a phone appointment with my IVF coordinator Morgan, and she went over my plan of care and calendar with me. Good thing she did, because just looking at the calendar is pretty overwhelming! I posted a picture, you can check out what I mean. The calendar tells you what medications you need to take daily, appointments, ultrasounds, blood work, and a couple other things.  This makes things much easier than if I were to just write it all down and try to remember what it all means. Thursday I had another phone appointment with my financial coordinator Sara. She has been dealing with my insurance and getting preauthorization for the treatment and making sure everything is good to go on that side. I can't even explain to you how grateful I am for Sara!! With other clinics I have gone to, I've had to do all of the insurance stuff myself. I can't even count the number of hours I have spent on the phone with the insurance company and getting absolutely no where. So to have someone else do it for you and just call you with what you need to know is AMAZING!!

All of my medications came on Saturday, which was a relief! With IVF, most of your medications come from a specialty pharmacy usually out of state. The pharmacy mine are coming from is in Massachusetts, so it was all shipped by mail. When I talked with Morgan on Tuesday, she told me that she had called in all of my prescriptions and that it was a priority shipment because I needed them by Sunday. The pharmacy had called me shortly after talking with Morgan and we got everything worked out and ready to go. They had to put a credit card of file in case I had a copay for the medications. I was fine with that and they said they would call me if there was a problem. So on Friday, I had a feeling to check my email. Well I had an email from the pharmacy saying the they had been trying to contact me and I needed to call them "at my earliest convenience." I called right away. The lady I talked to proceeded to tell me that due to my full deductible not being met with my insurance that my copay would be more than normal and she wanted to verify that the amount I needed to pay was going to be okay. So I'm sitting here thinking, alright $500-$700 bucks will be okay. Ummm NO. The price was $1632 dollars!!!! I think after she told me I just sat there for a couple seconds not saying anything... I was in SHOCK! $1600 dollars is the copay, are you kidding me? I can't even imagine full price. After I was able to wrap my brain around what she had just told me, I told her I needed to call my husband. The lady told me that was fine, and that they could send out the order Saturday and that it would be here by Monday. Wait, that doesn't work,  I said "No I need it Sunday..." She then said "oh okay, we can get it out on our 8 o'clock truck but in order to guarantee that, you will need to call back within the next 20 minutes at most." I told her that was fine and immediately called my insurance to see what in the world was going on. They explained to me that since my deductible wasn't fully met that I would have to pay the amount required and that they would reimburse for the overage. I was okay with that and then called Tyk to make sure it was okay with him too. He pretty much just said we didn't have another choice so to just go ahead and pay it. Oh how I love him! I called back in time to get the order on the 8 o'clock truck and it was on its way!

I started my first shot this morning, and it wasn't too bad. I will continue with this shot once a day for about a month. From what I've read, this injection is a pretty smooth one. Its the next two injections that are the more painful ones. I don't start those ones for a couple of weeks, so for now I will enjoy the not so bad pinch. Tomorrow Tyker and I both start a ZPack, which is just short of an antibiotic. We both will take this for about a week just to be sure that neither of us have any bugs floating around our systems.

Well that's the update for now!

Thanks for reading!!

Shandee

Before the ultrasound and Biopsy 

Biopsy sample.... OUCH!

IVF Calander

THEY'RE HERE, THEY'RE HERE!!!

YAY for all these drugs!

Our Story: From the Beginning

Hey! 

I've wanted to share our story for quite some time now, but its such a personal, deep part of my life that I have been scared to admit to I guess. I just think it allows me to be vulnerable to the ENTIRE WORLD.... which is a little scary. But I've decided that now is the time, so here is our story. 

Tyker and I have been married for a little over 5 years now. We meet at Weber State University in a generals class. We dated for 6 months and we were married. I was 19... Best decision ever! We had plans to both finish school and have a family within the next couple of years. I always wanted to be a young mom like my own, she was 22 years old and had three kids.  I mean I was 19, I knew I wanted kids at some point, but not any time soon. So we both continued with school, hung out with our friends (most who were married too), and enjoyed each other. After about a year and a half of being married, one of our really good married friends had their first little girl, and this got all of the other couples (including us) talking about when we were going to start trying. Tyk and I had talked about when to start trying for quite some time, and then one night we read a talk by a leader in our church, Neil L. Anderson. His talk is titled Children. (If you have not read it before, I highly recommend if you are struggling to know when starting a family). After reading this talk, we decided that it was time. This was October, 2013... And oh has it been a journey since then.

Since I was a young teenager, I have always had a weird feeling that I would struggle to have children. And now more than ever, I would like an explanation as to why. It's funny how our Heavenly Father prepares us for the hardships we are going to endure in our lives way before they are meant to happen. 

We tried for about eight months, and then I started wondering if something was wrong with me. I have ALWAYS thought the issue was me, and now we've just about confirmed that that is the truth (I will explain more on that later). But honestly, throughout the 8 months, I'm not sure if I really understood how to get pregnant, which I truly believe that most women don't fully understand the process. I mean yes... You put the P in the V and BAM you make a baby. But there is so much more to that with timing and how your body as a women is functioning. Just for your information, a woman has a time frame of about 40 hours a month that she can become pregnant. 40 HOURS! That is nothing. So for the ones that get pregnant on a whim, that was a VERY lucky draw. Anyway, my OBGYN is really big on natural family planning, which just means he would rather have you learn how your body works throughout the month and either use protection or practice abstinence during that time frame, than prescribe you with medication (birth control). So we had been "practicing" this and thought our timing was perfect, but still no baby. Then, after talking with some friends at about 9 months of trying, we decided to go see a different OB that my friend was going to. 

I remember being really nervous for the appointment, I just didn't know what to expect. When the doctor walked into the room, she introduced herself, and led right into "So you wanna get pregnant." I was just thinking, "Well yes, nice way to not beat around the bush." The conclusion of that appointment was Clomid (this is a medication that helps your body to ovulate, which is when the egg is released from the ovaries into the uterus to be fertilized). She didn't ask many other questions, medical history, nothing. She just gave me a prescription and sent me on my way. At the time I was super excited. I felt like we were going to finally have a chance at having a baby. But now that I look back, that was a horrible decision, and a band aid answer to a much bigger problem. She didn't take the time to find out a single thing about me. She just gave me some drugs and sent me on my way.  

So the first month passed with taking Clomid, and all that happened was CRAZY hot flashes, and bad headaches, but no baby. We decided to do another round. Round 2, I knew more of what to expect so the side effects weren't as bad, and guess what.... I was pregnant!! We were so excited, but SOOO cautious about the whole situation. Tyk and I had decided really early on in our marriage that when we did get pregnant we wanted to wait until we were well over the first trimester to announce the pregnancy. I only told three people that I was pregnant, which was my sister and my two best friends. We were planning to tell the rest of our family after the first ultrasound. Well that didn't really work out... We went to our first ultrasound appointment, and I was about 7 weeks along. The doctor came in and confirmed with me the I had become pregnant while taking Clomid. She then said "Well lets see how many babies we have!" Clomid often produces multiple births so the chances of me having more than one baby is fairly common. We started the Ultrasound, and I remember being really nervous. She had said to me "Well scoot on down here. I can't reach you clear up there." She was talking to me like I had done this before or something... I remember feeling so stupid. The doctor started the ultrasound and began to explain the insides of my body. The lining in my uterus looked good and pointing out the sack that the baby was in. She started to check for a heartbeat, and was explaining to Tyker and I what she as looking for. She showed us 3 lines on the sack that she said should be where the heart is beating, but they were still. From there, the doctor printed me an ultrasound picture, had me sit up, and explained to us that there is no heartbeat that she could detect at the time. She said that this happens sometimes, and that she wanted to get blood work done to test my HSG levels (this the pregnancy hormone that raises daily while you are pregnant) to see if they were raising properly, and that we would do another ultrasound in about a week. As she left the room, I looked at Tyk and just started crying... I remember him holding me and telling me that everything would be okay. I got the blood work done, and two days after found out that my levels had risen but not like they should have. I knew in my mind that I was not going to be having a baby... but I just could not come to means with that yet. So instead, I laid in bed for the next couple of days and looked up Internet forums and YouTube videos about if my baby's heart should be beating yet, or if it was still to early. If you are struggling with infertility or anything similar to this DO NOT DO THIS!!! Yes it may be comforting at the time, but your situation is not the persons situation that you are reading/watching about and chances are, your outcome will be different.  About a week past and we went back to our second ultrasound appointment. During the ultrasound, I could see that nothing had changed, and it was finally confirmed that I was having a miscarriage... My doctor had explained to me that this had nothing to do with what I had done, eaten, or not done. It simply just happens sometimes, quite often actually (1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage), and that I should not blame myself for the loss. That's easy for her to say, but the hurt that I feel at the time is indescribable. I started crying while she was talking to me and I remember her handing me some tissues. Then she began into the next steps to be taken. Did I want to do a D&C, which is where they sedate you and go in and surgically remove the baby, or did I want to pass it naturally, which would be a really heavy period in a nutshell. I chose to do the D&C because in my mind at the time, I wanted this to be done and over with and I wanted to get back on the wagon of trying as soon as possible..

I went in for the D&C about a week after the miscarriage was confirmed. I remember sitting in the waiting room that morning crying before they called me back. That was the last day I had my baby apart of me... That was the last day that I could hope and pray that this was all just a horrible dream and that I was really pregnant with a healthy, growing being inside of me. 

Everything went well (too well) with the surgery and I was released to go home. When I left the clinic, the nurse gave me care instructions for the next couple of days, one of them being how to treat the bleeding. Well here is the thing... I wasn't bleeding, at all. I thought little of it and kept forward with my recovery until about 5 days after the surgery. Tyker and I were at his mom's body building competition when I was overwhelmed with excruciating pain. I began to cramp like I had never experienced. I felt like my insides were being ripped to shreds, and nothing was helping. We finally got home and I laid in bed. Finally at about 2 AM, Tyk decided to take me to the ER. There, they did tests and ultrasounds to see if there was any left over tissue that had been missed in the D&C. Nothing was found. So they doped me up on some good pain killers, told me to contact my doctor on Monday, and sent me home. Monday came and I went back to the doctor. I told him what had happened and that I still wasn't bleeding. He just said that he had never heard of that before and gave me a medication that was supposed to induce bleeding. Well let me tell you... that is not what it did. Instead, I found myself on the toilet with an extreme case of the runs (sorry TMI) the whole next 2 day. And when I told the doctor this, he just laughed at me... what a jerk. This same pain came back to me the next week while I was at school in Logan. Thank goodness for my sweet friend Hillary for coming to my rescue and taking me to the Logan ER. We got pretty close that night... maybe it was due to the fact that she saw my bare hinny. Once again, we did more tests at the ER. They tested even more things, like my appendix and kidneys thinking that the pain had nothing to do with the miscarriage at all. Well every test came out negative and all we ended up with was no explanation to my pain and two HUGE medical bills... 

I had a laparoscopy surgery soon after I recovered from the miscarriage, because I thought I may have endometriosis. This is a disorder where the tissue on the inside of your uterus grows on the outside of your uterus. It causes scaring on your uterus and can cause infertility. The results of the surgery weren't extreme, but it was confirmed that I do have endometriosis and PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). I did 4 more rounds of Clomid after the surgery with no results. At this point, I was frustrated, devastated, angry, and out of hope for what to do. Clomid is pretty hard on your body, and is not recommended to take more than six times. Well I was at my six and had nothing else to do. I was referred to a fertility specialist by my original OBGYN.

From there we have done 6 more rounds of Femara, which is similar to Clomid, one month of injections and a trigger shot, and we're on our third infertility doctor. We've done just about every test that can be done for both Tyker and I, and everything comes back normal with flying colors. The doctors have classified our case as unexplained infertility. 

It will be three years this October that Tyker and I have been trying to start our family, and two years this month that I got pregnant and miscarried. over that time I can't even explain to you the hurt that I have felt... The deepest most tender part of my soul aches in sorrow. I have earned to have a baby for so long. And then this hurt changes into pure anger. You begin to question why this is happening to you, what is it that you are doing wrong in your life that keeps you from receiving a gift that comes so amazingly easy to some. I've had to sit and watch just about every single one of my friends experience motherhood and them ask me when I'm going to have one myself. I wonder why I was given a baby for such a short amount of time. And what I did to have my child be taken away from us too soon. I hurt, and I cry often about it. And I think that's okay... I don't want to sound like I am not happy for my friends and the people around me that are growing their families. I want you to all know that I am beyond joyous about that for you, and I would never be mad that you became pregnant. I don't want anyone to ever feel like they can't share that experience with me because they don't want to hurt my feelings, or make me sad. Please don't hide your happy time from me, I would much rather find out from you then from the grapevine. Yea, you bet your butt that I'm sad for me, that its not me telling you that I'm the one expecting. But I am so so so beyond happy, and excited for you. And honestly, I think that anyone who has every experienced infertility will agree with me 100% on that.

This journey has been the hardest thing I have ever been through (and I've not had the easiest past). It has taught me so much about myself, Tyk, life in general, and a huge amount of patience.... But most of all, it has taught me to rely on the Lords plan for me. I'm a planner, I need a plan, and I want it my way. Well... this has definitely shown me that that's not always the way it goes. God is in charge of my life, and his plan isn't always my plan. This has been very difficult for me to understand, but I know his plan is best. Through this experience, it has been crazy to see that saying "Everything happens for a reason" pan out. I still don't understand or know all of the reasons behind this struggle of ours, but as time has gone by, I understand more and more as to why His plan is greater than mine. This lesson has been rough, and I am so grateful to have had Tyker by my side throughout the process.

My hope in sharing my story is to help me cope better throughout this process. I tend to keep all of this all bottled up inside, and then I just break down.  I have always felt that writing my worries, stresses, obstacles, or any type of experience down, has some how given me some sort of comfort. Its funny how that works, but I truly believe that if I can share my story, even if it is only to myself while writing it, that just from releasing the information/feelings from my own mind will help me to feel better. Tyker and I have chosen to be pretty private about our situation. I don't like telling people why we don't have kids, or that my body doesn't work like its supposed to. The other hope I have through sharing my story is to help just one person that may be struggling with infertility themselves. It is such a taboo in our world still today, and its something that is so hard to open up about. I just want you to know that you are not alone. We are doing this together, we are fighters, and our time will come. Remember to be patient with yourself, and understand that you are enough. Sometimes I feel like I am inadequate as a women because I have not been able to bare children. The ultimate thing that a woman's body is made to do, and I, for some reason am not able to do that.  I feel like I am taking that away from Tyker, and that makes me feel horrible. SO like I said before... YOU ARE ENOUGH. Also, remember to be patient with the people around you. They have no idea what you are going through, and sometimes people just say stupid things. 

For the people that may have someone in their life that is going through infertility... the same thing. Please be patient. We are going through a lot of different feelings and emotions that are hard to control. Ask questions. Believe it or not, we want to talk about it. It is consuming our lives and to just talk about it (even if you've already talked about it 1 million times) will help us cope with what is going on. Remember that if we are doing any type of treatment, that we are stuffing our bodies full of crazy amounts of hormones, and sometimes we say mean things that we don't really mean to say at all. Sometimes... the best thing to do is to just hold us, tell us its going to be okay. You don't need to solve the problem, just be there, and love us. And just remember, we're on a roller coaster of emotions. One day we may be absolutely fine with the situation and understand that its just not time, and then the next we are bawling our eyes out uncontrollably. Just remember, that's okay! Let us cry. Let us be mad and angry about seeing another pregnancy announcement on social media, because it will happen. Let us lay in bed all day, because chances are that's the only way we can handle reality that day. Just be there.... They need you.

And lastly, for everyone.... Quit asking people when they are going to have kids!!! Its none of your business and you have no idea what kind of feelings that brings up in their own lives. 

So... What's our next step? Well after months of contemplation... and the blessing of amazing insurance, we are moving forward with our first cycle of In Vitro Fertilization. This has been a really difficult decision for us, but after talking with our doctor and praying, we feel that this is our next step and honestly the only way we may ever have a family! 

I plan to stay up to date with what is going on through this process, and documenting the whole experience. Stay tune for the details of our IVF journey, and if you have any questions, I am willing to share just about anything about our experience. 

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Shandee