Not much longer now!

With the New Year right around the corner we are gearing up for our next attempt at an FET. Currently I am about 2 weeks from AF showing and once she makes her presence known I can begin estrogen. Then it is a waiting game for my mid-cycle scan to check my uterine lining. Everything hinges on that. If all goes well we should be on schedule for a late January transfer. I am starting to get excited!!!

In other news we did have an addition to our household. Meet Dugan, aka Doogie Bowser.

 



He is an 8 week old Maltese and just the cutest little guy. And yes, I know that getting a puppy right before an FET and possibly adding a baby or two to the family is insane! But Maddie has been begging for a puppy. And she "wuvs" her puppy. He looks just like our beloved Dudley that we had to put to sleep last year. I still miss him like crazy and while Dugan does not replace him, he does fill a void. So far he is a great little guy. He is doing very well with house breaking and sleeping at night. Let's hope it continues.


One last thing! There is a new EA blogger that just started her first cycle. Please take a moment to visit her blog, show her some love, and maybe even follow her! You can find her here. :)

do they ever look?

Tonight I was browsing through the Donor Sibling Registry to see if there was any posting from the clinic that we used when we had Maddie. They were the only clinic in the entire area to have an ED program and I thought for sure that there would be something on there. There was not. So I just browsed through everything, taking a look into the lives of people just like us. People wondering where their child began their genetic journey. Or where they themselves came from. Then I wondered if Maddie's genetic family was out there somewhere sitting in front of a computer screen, browsing the Registry as well. Do they ever think about the 6 little embryos they donated? Are they curious to know if a child or two resulted from their generous gift? I know that I would. And maybe one day they will find us on there. I hope so.

Prayer for fellow EA momma

Another EA momma needs us to be praying for her and her family right now. She is currently 30(ish) weeks pregnant with boy/girl twins and her water has broken and should deliver in the next 2-5 days. Her little boy is doing well but she has known for some time now that her daughter will not make it. She has severe abnormalities and not expected to live long. I cannot imagine what they are going through right now and my heart is just breaking for them. I have known this woman for over 6 years through a forum that we both moderate.

Please keep her (M) and her hubby (J) in your prayers as well as her 3 year old little boy (EA baby from the same batch of embryos as the twins). Their family is hurting right now and they need us to pray for them. Thank you!

Pampered Chef Fundraiser!

We have started our Pampered Chef fundraiser to help raise some of the money needed for our upcoming cycle in January. If you are looking for some great Christmas gifts look no further! There are a ton of great items to make your gift giving easier. No one left on your gift list? Then reward yourself for all of your hard work and buy yourself something nice!

Go here to view the catalog: Pampered Chef Fundraiser and enter Fertility Institute for Reproductive Medicine for the sale to count towards us. All funds will go directly to our clinic once the sale is complete. Hurry! Less than 2 weeks to place your order!

I am trying to make lemonade here, people!

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Yep, we have all heard it. We have all probably rolled our eyes at it too. This phrase is never said when things are going great so it is expected that it is not a well received quote. Today I was handed some lemons. I used to like lemons but now, not so much. So what was it? A house. My house. The house that I drive past several times a week and have wanted. It is not some beautiful, fancy dream house. No, I have one of those and it is like Ryan Gosling...fun to look at and dream about, but I am levelheaded enough to know it is out of my reach. No, this house is next door to my mom and is about 50 years old. It has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths, an in ground pool, fenced in yard, a den with a separate entrance that would make a perfect in home daycare for me, hard wood floors and many other things that I like. It was foreclosed on over a year ago and I have wanted it ever since. And it is on the market and is dirt cheap. Like seriously cheap!!! But still out of our reach.

About 11 years ago we purchased a mobile home. We traveled for dh's job (I went with him) and were rarely home so it was the perfect choice. It is in a really nice park and well maintained. And very safe for when I am home alone. Once I quit traveling we were faced with a decision: buy a house or try for a baby. It was a no brainer, we wanted a baby. Seven years later we finally have that baby and are in the process of trying for another, but it has us no closer to owning a home. Dh is self employed and in order to keep from paying a fortune in taxes we take every tax deduction we can get. This makes us look dirt poor. And the years of medical bills (deductibles, fertility treatments, and copayments) have left us with a pile of medical debt that has hurt our credit. A lot! We have most of the debt paid down but the damage is done. We could afford the house payment easily, even with our current mobile home payment, and there is a first time home buyers asst program here that we qualify for that would give us $15k down yet we cannot get this house.

So for me, this sad news is a lemon. But my lemonade is that we will work harder to get out of the rest of our debt and rebuild our credit score. And we have a child and the chance at another. That is worth more than any house. But I still want that house!!! I thought about dropping some dead cockroaches in the window to scare off potential buyers, but they creep me out so there goes that. Maybe a few snakes? A ghostly noise? Mine traps?? Or maybe I should just pray, huh? :)

Free IVF cycle contest

The Sher Institute in St. Louis is having a contest for 2 free IVF cycles, one for PI and one for SI. You have to submit a video for it and have until the 7th of December. There are only 4 submissions so it is really good odds. We would do it but have already invested so much time and money into our current situation that we would lose money so we are not entering. But in case anyone else is interested here is the website: http://haveababy.com/announcements/i-believe-video-journal-project/

Update on our next cycle

If you have been following our journey you may know that our last cycle was canceled due to too thick lining. I was supposed to start my next cycle 3-4 days after stopping meds but it was 38 days before that happened. Thankfully it happened on its own and I did not have to take meds. I am not opposed to meds, I just wanted things to get back to working order before starting more meds.

So I started right before Thanksgiving and while I could have begun my meds for an FET we decided not to. Cycling now meant traveling in early December and things are too busy right now. I love Christmas and I really wanted to focus on that instead of meds, appointments, traveling, resting, and worrying about the outcome. So we will be waiting until January. If things go as planned (ha ha, snicker, snicker) we should be ready late Jan/early Feb.

In the meantime we are trying to raise some of the money for it. I know that if we drain our savings it will be hard to replenish it. Especially if I do get pregnant and have to start buying for a baby....or two. So we are having a Pampered Chef fundraiser show the first 2 weeks of December. It will mainly be online and I will post a link here once it begins. The money will go directly to our clinic and will be a big help towards covering the costs of the procedure. While I am excited to do this I am a bit nervous too. In order for it to be successful we will need to post about our next procedure on Facebook. While we are both very, very open about our fertility issues as well as embryo adoption, it is not something that I post on Facebook about. Also, I don't care to announce to everyone when we are cycling as I don't want a bagillion people asking me how it went if things are not positive. But that is a risk that we are going to take.

So that catches you all up on how things are going. Your prayers are appreciated as well try to raise some of the money as well as for our next cycle.