It's a...............

So a few posts back I mentioned throwing this baby shower for a dear friend for the pending arrival of baby girl Zaylee. Paige went into labor and delivered this sweet bundle of joy on 11.12.13, well turns out IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, Im still kinda in shock........as Im sure mommy and daddy are too! The family is doing great and at home now with baby boy Titus Monroe Bachellor ~ and he has the cutest button nose I have ever seen :)

This has given me some serious baby fever.....and sent me back into a researching, over analyzing, frenzy......seriously this has got to happen for us soon!! I just cant imagine that it is not meant for us to have children of our own.

I have been off birth control now for over a month and have yet to start my cycle, no ovulation, no cycle and no day 1 so I can start my clomid.......seriously any time i have ever missed a pill in my entire life, i have what seems like a full blown menstrual cycle the next day.....and now we are going on over a month.....my calendar is ready, prescription is in hand, ovulation & pregnancy test are ready, and WE ARE READY!

Greg's appointment for his cryropreservation is Dec 3rd, and we also have a consultation with the fertility clinic that is doing the preservation to discuss options should this trying it on our own doesnt work.....BUT i can't help to be hopeful that this is going to work. I mean give us a break on the first one since we know any future attempts are gonna cost us a bunch of money.....

So we wait.....and hope that one day we get to experience the baby showers, the baby gifts, decorating a nursery, buying diapers, and welcoming baby Pullen.

In the meantime I will continue to fight through the negative feelings, the jealousy, the anger and not let this disease make me a bitter person. So far, so good and thankfully I have a lot of amazing babies, and children in my life that helps me keep my focus on my love for them :)

Hoping I made the right decision.....

So on to my next crazy decision............Ive mentioned my 17 year old sister being pregnant.......this is the same sister that lived with me from ages 12-15. She is now emancipated and for the last 6 months has been trying to find a place to live for her and her boyfriend. She is still a senior in highschool, and I am very proud of her to still be in school and doing well given the circumstances over the last couple years. As a teenager who is old enough to drop out, as well as emancipated, I am amazed at her determination to stay in school and graduate.

A few months ago she mentioned looking for a place to live, she had found a few places that fell through, and now was looking at going to a shelter. So my husband and I had several talks about her and her situation. As much as I wanted to help I knew #1 I was not in a financial state to take care of anyone else given what we were going through with all this fertility mess & #2 she was pregnant, about to bring a baby into this world which is what Greg and I have been working so hard for so long....

To my surprise it was Greg's idea to let her come stay with us. We had daily conversations about it for over a week because I just wasnt sure it was the best decision for us....one of my major concerns was that what if she doenst have anywhere to go when the baby came??  We had already struggled with that situation before with my sister Amber...and I felt horrible that we were not prepared to have a newborn in the home.  Then one day Greg just looked at me after I asked him the same questions over and over and said...."Stacy it will all work out, we will handle it when it happens, stop worrying about it" Of course Greg knows me better than anyone and I know he was thinking that I would be devastated if my sister went to a shelter and dropped out of school.  So at that point a decision was made to let her come stay with us.

It has been two weeks and so far so good. While I excited about having another niece I am also scared for my little sister. I know that everything will work out but I know she really has no clue what is about to happen, and the lifestyle changes that are about come. I mean I cant tell you Im 100% prepared for having a child. But I hope that Im able to help a little bit and right now the best thing I can do for my sister and my niece is allow her to stay with me and help her finish school. Again I think I would really regret allowing Infertility to make me a person I am not. Under any normal circumstance I would have not thought twice about this decision. So now we just figure it all out from here and await the arrival of Miss Kahmayah!

Due March 25, 2014

WE HAVE SWIMMERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The results are in! Total Sperm Concentration from ZERO to 70 Million after 3 months of injections of Repronex & Novarel and doctors not being super optimistic that it was gonna work after other failed tries with other meds. We are well over the normal range, 61% motility ~ all are forward progressing with 40% being rapid ~ and 30% are normal which is the only value Id like to see higher BUT 30% of 70million, Ill take it!

February 2013 ~ Zero Count

October 2013 ~ 70 million

  So of course Im SUPER HAPPY about that :) :) not to mention Greg has been gleaming all weekend. That is after I got over being SOOO mad at him for not calling me as soon as he got the results & making me wait till after he got off work to share the news.......ughh MEN !! 

Again the emotional roller coaster has taken us for a ride, in light of the great news, we are now faced with the decision of what to do next..........After being super mad a Greg for not calling me and then being completely ecstatic about the news, the anxiety and stress of what our next step will be has set in...of course step one is an appointment with a fertility clinic to find out our options on sperm preservation so that Greg does not have to go through these injections again and can get put on testosterone supplements asap.

Then step 2 gets a little trickier..........do we go with the doctors recommendations and go straight into the expensive, not covered by insurance, IVF???? They recommend this due to my medical issues, the cysts on my remaining ovary...the scar tissue from the endometriosis and them wanting to avoid any invasive procedure to me that might risk damaging something further.....

OR do we go with my intuition that says you have got to try this naturally in an attempt to have to avoid the expense of IVF. I have a left over round of clomid at home......I can come off my birth control, invest in more Ovulation tests and hope for the best. I know that any future attempt once we get Greg on testosterone supplements we will have to do IVF or IUI so my gut tells me that I have to give this a shot. I will feel much better about jumping into the more expensive and invasive options if I at least try this. I was 100% about this decision when I seen a post come across that was posted from an endocrinology page......

Birth control was stopped on Saturday, I am calling today for the appointment for the sperm preservation, I have printed my calendars and will be ordering my ovulation test shortly......

Here we go! Fingers Crossed! Prayers Sent! 

Coming NOT Soon ENOUGH.....results.......

So Im in need of patience!!!! Greg has been on injections since the end of July...it seems like it has been a year.....The 72 day wait that was needed to give his body time to hopefully start producing little swimmers has passed, and Greg is on his way to pick up the results AS I TYPE............my stomach is in knots....I seriously cant stop thinking about the what ifs.......

What if the results are bad..................no swimmers...not enough....or abnormal............we will have such a big decision in front of us. Continue with treatment in hopes something will happen, eventually, but for how long??? Greg really needs to be on Hormone Therapy like stat!! He is so miserable and depressed a lot of the time and Im so stressed and emotional all the time bc of this so do we just stop here and consider being child free or adopting????

What if they are good....we have plenty of healthy wonderful swimmers......Although I would be ecstatic I still see that big red sign INSURANCE STOPS HERE.....they will not cover extraction and preservation, which will be a definite because we do not want to have to revisit the injections and Greg coming off of hormonal supplementation every time we want to have a kid...........they will not cover IUI or IVF........So with the good news comes the anxiety and stress of what to do next........being the crazy money saving couponing person I am I feel like I should immediately come off birth control, order some more ovulation strips, get my last refill of clomid filled and try naturally so that we could possibly save ourselves from the financial burden of IUI & IVF.....either way we have to figure out the preservation for the future but what if we can do it on our own just this once????? Of course that is against the recommendations of my doctor who wants me on birth control to better control my cycles and contain my cysts and endometriosis in preparation for IVF or IUI, but I just think I would feel better going into those if I know that it is the only option left.

This waiting really stinks.....every time my phone rings I jump....just tried to call him and no answer, hopefully he is picking them up?!?! ughhhhhh......

Baby Shower............Mission Accomplished!

I did it!! I survived planning and throwing a baby shower. I decided awhile back to throw a baby shower for a dear friend. We have been friends for many years now and she has done so much for me, mainly helping me keep my sanity! She is always there to listen, and always offers to help in anyway she can.

 

The main reason for the shower was to do something for her for everything she has done for me. The second reason was keep me focused on not allowing infertility to make me the angry bitter person. In the past year I have purposely avoided baby showers and kids birthdays, I have gotten anxious when shopping for kids/babies, and worst of all I have had feelings of jealousy and resentment when finding out people are pregnant or seeing pregnant people and people with their new babies. THIS IS NOT ME AT ALL...........I have always absolutely LOVED kids, I enjoy anytime of gathering with friends and family, and I have been so happy for everyone when I get the news of the pregnancy. So my mission was to prove to myself that I was not letting this infertility redefine me and make me an angry bitter person. Sure some of the feelings and emotions are normal given the circumstance but for a while I almost felt as I was losing control of everything.

Don't get me wrong, planning a baby shower was no easy task for me, I had days that I just wanted to cancel it or hand it all over to someone else. To get through those days I would just put everything down or try to mentally leave the "baby" out of it and start planning a "cookout". Some of my closets friends and family thought I was nuts for doing it, but if I had the decision to make all over again I would not hesitate to do it again for her. The last thing I want is to become a miserable, angry person. I know that I will have my moments but I do not want a day to come when I cant dig my self out of those negative thoughts. So MISSION ACCOMPLISHED - baby shower planned and held without too many major breakdowns and I did not let infertility turn me into a negative bitter person. I can not wait for Miss Zaylee Paige to arrive so I can share in the joy of that precious gift!!

Now on to the next crazy venture..............(you all are sure to hear of that one real soon....)

Pharmacy Frustration!!!

I wrote briefly about my frustration with my pharmacy in previous posts. I FINALLY got the issues resolved after 3 weeks of dealing with multiple pharmacies, and my husbands doctor thinking we were trying abuse the medications bc they had to contact several different pharmacies before we finally got it right. My insurance recently started requiring us to use a certain mail order pharmacies for any medication requiring more than 2 refills or they charge us a surcharge. After dealing with this mail order pharmacy for 2 weeks saying they didnt get the prescriptions, they couldnt verify the prescription was faxed from a doctors office, that they couldnt talk to me bc the could find my HIPA authorization, and lots of other issues I finally find out two days before my husband is due for his shot and after two weeks of trying to get it filled that I have to go through a specialty pharmacy. So the process started ALL OVER again :( Imagine my frustration.... So I figured I would share some information that I learned from my experience in an attempt to save someone else from the same situation. When dealing with fertility meds its not as easy as the doctor call it in and you pick it up in an hour - please take a second to read all the information below bc I promise it will save you ALOT of frustration.

First things first!! If you are a spouse of the one receiving the medications but you are the one that typically handles ordering refills and pick up of the meds then

Another Sad Post............

Sometimes I feel like this infertility journey has made me a different person. The most obvious change to myself is my level of emotions seem multiplied by 1000. Almost like a permanent state of PMS that is triggered by the craziest things.

I found out last week that my cousin had a miscarriage. I surprised myself by my reaction ~ I immediately became super emotional and sat in the bathroom and cried as if it was something I was going through. I cried for her and her family because I know she was hurting, and then I cried for us. Greg and I are fighting so hard to have a family of our own and I don't know what I'm more scared of sometimes.........the thought of not being able to have children.....or the thought of having it then losing it. Getting that positive pregnancy test and then finding out something went wrong. I hear so many people say that they wait to tell everyone they are pregnant till after the "safe zone", but how do you determine what the safe zone is?? At the beginning of my infertility journey a close friend of my suffered a late term miscarriage and my heart broke for her but then I watched her pick her self up and try again.....I asked myself then if that was something I would survive, and my answer is still Im not sure I could do that. I think of how heart breaking it is to see the negative on the pregnancy test, or a zero sperm count on the lab results, and I worry that if something like that was to happen that would be my breaking point.

After I heard the news I messaged my cousin just to let her know I was thinking about her. I thought about how lonely she must feel