Sick and cancelled IUI

Merry Christmas! I know I'm a few days late but better late than never, I say! I hope everyone had a great Christmas or holiday or whatever you celebrate. If you celebrate nothing, then I hope you had a happy day! lol

I started feeling bad on Christmas eve but I went to my appointment anyway. Jay and I started taking some airborne in hopes that we'd be able to fight off whatever it was we were starting to feel. Jay managed to fight it off. I was not as lucky. Christmas I was feeling worse but still managed to get through the day fairly smoothly. Yesterday was probably the worst day of all. My temp was high and my head was pounding. So I asked Jay to call the RE and cancel our appointment because not only am I sick but now my oldest son is feeling really bad too.  Jay and I have decided to move forward with a medicated "natural" cycle. Meaning, we're just gonna go at it like normal people and hope for the best! LOL Of course being sick isn't very sexy and I haven't felt "up for the task" but hopefully we can get back to our trying. With the higher temps due to clomid, possibly false positives on my clear blue digital advanced ovulation predictor kit, and the sickness throwing the rest of my temps off, it's really hard to know if I have or have not already O'd. I'm still testing with cheap ovulation test strips and those have not shown a positive so I'll keep going with that until I either get a peak or AF shows. I'm 14 days in to my cycle and if my ovulation date is like my past ovulations I should be ovulating between CD15 and 19. Only time will tell! Wish us luck! We're gonna need it!

Until next time!

Clomid Side Effects

I am five days into my cycle and only three days into my five day prescription of clomid. I am already feeling side effects. Yesterday it started with just the crazed hormones. I'm not as patient as I usually am with the boys which results in a lot of yelling and frustrated corrections to them. Poor kiddos. Then last night I had a nose bleed which was weird. Then it happened again this morning. I think it has a lot to do with the hot flashes. So far I have hot flashes and craze hormonal mood swings. Let's hope they subside when I stop taking the medication! The kids are praying, I'm sure!

I just have to keep reminding myself that this is all for a greater cause. I just pray that these side effects are because my ovaries are producing a couple eggs so that we have a higher chance of success! Any suggestions or comments are welcome! I'd love to hear about other people's success stories or their process through clomid, IUI or both!

Until next time!

Cycle Day 1 of our IUI Cycle

   Today is CD 1! (Cycle Day 1) So immediately I called the clinic to ask them what I should do. I had an appointment scheduled for the 19th of December because I thought I would start closer to then instead of now but my body decided differently! Thank goodness I have all of my medications ready! 

   On Monday (CD 3), I will start my clomid and continue taking it for five days. This is supposed to help my body create and mature my eggs better. There is a possibility of multiples as it can cause a few eggs to be released at the same time. Generally the risk of twins while on Clomid is about 10%, though it can be higher depending on the person, (Info came from here). At this point, I just hope I get pregnant sooner than later. The risk of having triplets or more is less than 1% so I'm not even worried about that. These numbers would be so much higher if we went on with IVF! So thank goodness for our opportunity to do IUI instead of IVF! 

  While speaking to the clinic, I was informed that I will be needing the HCG injections which I assume will be to trigger ovulation so we can schedule the IUI precisely with ovulation. They wanted to see me on CD 12 but that is Christmas Day so I will be going in on Christmas Eve to have an ultrasound to check if my eggs are ready to be triggered. I will probably then be advised on when to administer the trigger shot and an appointment will be scheduled for 36 hrs after I am given the trigger shot to do the IUI (intrauterine insemination aka artificial insemination). I also have progesterone injections from the prescription I was given when we were going to do IVF so I will discuss the use of those after the IUI when I see the doctor on the 24th. Progesterone helps with the thickening of the lining and the implantation of the egg. Hopefully, I will be given the go ahead on those.

   I'm excited and nervous! It's all starting. Hopefully this isn't a waste but I think that if we don't get pregnant this cycle, we will do a medicated non-IUI cycle next month. Hopefully the doctor is ok with that. 

Until next time,

Breath of fresh air!

   I get a phone call about one my prescriptions. Turns out the clinic forgot to fax over the script and during the phone call the gentleman told me that it was going to be $1432 for the medication. YIKES! So I call the clinic upset because I was told it was $35 for the medication when it was really $35 PER vial! That's a big difference. 

At least I was thoughtful enough to ask what the results of the sample Jay left to be frozen yesterday were.

His sperm count is 37 million with 43.2% motility. Which is AMAZING. We had thought he had scarred over!! Now he's got numbers better than anything we've seen!! 

WHICH MEANS WE DO NOT HAVE TO DO IVF!! Yay! The doctor called in a prescription of clomid and we'll do an IUI during my next cycle. If this doesn't work then I don't mind moving forward to IVF eventually but I'd rather not spend that kind of money if we don't need to.

The beginning of our IVF journey

  Yesterday we had our first appointment to start our IVF cycle. I received four medications. That turned into a debacle trying to get those scripts filled. Which then made me realize that once I start these meds, I'm going to be 100 times worse. I'm going to be given hormones to stimulate my cycle. I feel pity on my husband, my children and any poor soul I encounter in the next 30-45 days. Please pray for them, and me. lol 

   All this stuff starts next week, I have an appointment scheduled for the first day of my cycle. Then, hopefully they will explain to me how all of these medications work, how to take them and when to take them.  I'm feeling very confused and out of the loop on how this all works. The staff doesn't give a whole lot of details on what's happening and how it all works. Hopefully, they will at least explain the drugs and how to take them, when to take them and the appointments we have to make at our next appointment when my cycle starts. Until then, I'm reading what I can online.
   I found this general chart of the flow of IVF. This is helpful because now I have a general timeline. Thank goodness for the internet right?! 

Synarel/Lupron
(Approx. 12-15 days)

Baseline Ultrasound

Stimulation
(Approx. 10-12 days)

Trigger Shot

Egg Retrieval
(36-37 hours after trigger shot)

Embryo Transfer
(3-5 days after retrieval)

Pregnancy Test
(14 days after retrieval)

Ultrasounds
1st - Approx. 6 ½-7 weeks pregnant
2nd - Approx. 7 ½ - 8 ½ weeks pregnant
Release to OB at 8-10 weeks pregnant

The chart and any other information can be found here.

So as long as my cycle starts on time (C'mon Dec 19th!!), my time line is looking like we'd be able to find out if we're pregnant on Feb 1st or so. 

The more I read into this process, the more real it becomes. Let's pray one cycle is all we need! I'm feeling nervous, anxious and scared. At the same time, I'm excited, happy and can't wait to find out if this works. Is it too soon for baby names?? LOL 

Until next time,

The Break is Over!

I took a much needed break from TTC and the whole process. Mostly to gather myself, mourn the idea I had that didn't pan out and reformulate a plan, if we decided to move forward.

In October, my husband went off to a 5.5 week school. The kids and I drove out to the east coast for his graduation and we just arrived home yesterday. During our 3 day drive home, Jay and I discussed our options at length. We have decided that if we are going to do this, we should just go ahead with IVF w/ ICSI. I'm not sure when we will start this but I'm hoping we can start it next cycle. I will be calling our fertility specialist soon to discuss the options and how quickly we can get started.

Of course, our minds can change at any moment. This is a very big decision and we will be talking about it constantly. We always discuss the pros and cons and things come up with out notice. But as of right now, this is our plan. Hopefully it works out for us.

Thoughts and Pros & Cons of Adoption

Last Friday, the RE gave Jay a prescription for Prednisone. Today he was finally able to get this prescription filled and will start taking them tonight. I've heard varying stories as to the success of prednisone. Some say that it helped and they got pregnant after taking it. Some say it helped temporarily by reducing the swelling and some sperm were able to get through. Then some say that it didn't help at all because they had already scarred over. Because of this all being a huge gamble one way or another, Jay and I have differing opinions on what we feel we should do. He would like to wait to see if the meds work and I want to go ahead with IVF. Again, affording IVF is a concern and right now I'm not sure we can afford it with out financing.

Adoption is also one of our options that we've been discussing. There for a short while, it was on the top of our list. I did research on all of our options and the more appealing one became, the deeper my research would become on that subject.

Pros for Adoption

• Give someone a better life by opening up our family to them
• If we adopt through foster care, it's cheaper and less risky of losing our paid fees.
• No stressful and expensive medical procedures
• Choice of race, age, sex of child we're adopting

Cons for Adoption

• No pregnancy, no birth experienced together
• Potential unknown health or behavioral issues
• Very expensive if seeking infant adoption or overseas adoption
• Strenuous process - home studies, lots of paperwork and interviews
• Risk of child not bonding with us

Jay was completely on board for moving directly to adoption. I was more skeptical. The cost is very comparable to a round of IVF w/ICSI and the process could take months if not years to complete depending on our requirements for our potential child. State adoptions are typically cheaper while adoption agencies charge upwards of $20,000 per placement. With state adoptions, the children are typically older and a lot of them have siblings trying to be placed with them. With agency adoptions, there are more options of age, sex and race. I don't feel as though race is a huge priority of ours. I feel as though if adoption is the route we take, when we meet that child that is OUR child, it won't matter what their race is.

I'd say this is probably still an option in the running but I keep moving it up and down on our list. 

As of right now, I am fearful of the age gap between our next child and our current children. If we were to get pregnant now, there will be almost a 5 year gap between Eli and the baby and a 7 year gap between Jayson and the baby. If we adopt, we could be looking at a process that takes months to complete, but we could adopt a child close to our children's age. To set myself at easy about having a baby, I decided that I'd try for two babies so they'd be close in age together, but if we go with IVF that will be harder to do since it's so expensive. If we adopt we could try to adopt a set of siblings close to our boys' age. If we decide to do the reversal, it'll put us on hold for a little while before being able to have the surgery but the possibility of multiple children of our own conceived naturally is back on the table. I suppose I should do a bigger scale pros and cons list with all possible options so we can see what's more likely suitable for us.

I'm still leaning more towards IVF for now because I feel like it has better chances of working out for us and sooner. If you'd like to donate to help us either afford IVF or a reversal re-do, please click the link above or to the right of the blog. 

Thanks! 

Until next time,

Vasectomy Re-Do Pros and Cons

Another one of our options after Jay has scarred over, is to have another vasectomy reversal done. With his original reversal being a failure, I do not believe we would go through the military again. We called the International Center for Vasectomy Reversals to get an idea of how much we would have to pay for a re-do and before any discounts, their average charge is $9,800. Which is about $3,700 more than doing IVF but it gives us unlimited tries to get pregnant IF it works. None of these options are guarantees.

Pros for re-doing surgery

• One time fee for the surgery (unlike IVF which is paid every time we attempt to get pregnant)
• Unlimited tries at getting pregnant (if it is a successful surgery)
• Can possibly conceive naturally
• Less likely to need IVF
• If pregnancy is accomplished, we experience pregnancy and birth together.

Cons for re-doing surgery

• More expensive than one round of IVF ($9,800 before military discount for Surgery vs. $6100 w/ discount for IVF w/ ICSI)
• Jay has to go through surgery and recovery all over again
• We will have to wait until Jay is done with school in order to have surgery which means we can't do it until March
• Risk of failure - No guarantee.

Like I said, we're leaning more towards IVF w/ICSI but I wanted to write out the different pros and cons so that we (and all of you) could see what are the pros and cons to each option.

Jay if there are any pros or cons that you would like to add, please do so but in a different color so we can differentiate between my pros and cons and yours.

I encourage everyone to add comments of pros and cons that they may have thought of that we haven't. All suggestions are welcome but please know that it might not be a priority for us and might not change our minds. 

Until tomorrow!

IVF Pros & Cons List

Well the results came back and Jay's hormone levels are fine, which is good and bad. Good because he's healthy, YAY! Bad because it's his hormones which is something that could be corrected.

The sample he gave had sperm though none were moving but they were able to freeze two vials. These aren't good enough for IUI so this month is a bust. Next cycle I can start clomid (or similar) to stimulate ovulation so they can harvest eggs for IVF. Since the sperm are non-motile, we'll have to do IVF with ICSI. Which means that instead of putting my egg and some sperm in a dish and let the sperm try to fertilize the egg, they'll have to take a single sperm and inject it into the egg under a microscope. Then we wait to see if the eggs fertilize and then they transfer them to me and we hope they implant.

Here are some of the pros and cons of IVF.... it's not our only option but it's the one I'll focus on today. Tomorrow, Jay or I will discuss the pros and cons of another option.

Pros of IVF w/ICSI (If it works)
We get to...
experience pregnancy together.
experience the birth together.
biological child.
know the medical history of the family.
pick out names together.

Cons of IVF w/ICSI
We ...
spend thousands of dollars trying ($5550-6100 per try with military discount)
don't have a guarantee that it will work (42.5%-50% depending on the doctors success rate)
might experience failed pregnancies
have possible side effects of medications (clomid has side effects of being highly hormonal while on it)
might not get pregnant.

In the end it is a decision we have to decide on together as a couple and maybe even as a family. As of right now, Jay and I are leaning more towards IVF w/ICSI over adoption or any other route but there is a lot that goes into deciding, including how we would afford it. If you would like, there is a donate button the the right of the blog, feel free to click it and help us out with our saving for IVF.

Until next time,

Low Sperm Count, Cryobanks and New Options

First, the reason we saw the RE is because Jay had an SA done on Wednesday and his counts came back at 200,000 sperm with none of them moving. There could be any number of reasons that the sperm count is that low. Scarring is one of them. That's the one we're terrified of and the one that means that it's over. Low testosterone or abnormal FSH levels, both of these can be corrected by medication. Infection is another reason and corrected by antibiotics. The last, less likely to me, reason is that it's just an off day, week or month for Jay's sperm count and they'll be back soon. HA! I don't buy that for a second. I believe there is something going on and we need to do what we can, when we can to fix it. Hopefully it's one of the ones that can be corrected with medication and not it's not scarring over.

If it scars over, we are done trying naturally. We would have to have a re-do or an extraction, both of which are costly. An extraction means that we'd HAVE to do IVF w/ ICSI which costs $5550-6100 depending on where we do it (HI or AZ) and that does not include the cost of the extraction.

If we go the route of a re-do on the reversal, that will cost us around $9800 (before military discount, still waiting to hear back on that) but we'd get unlimited chances at trying if it is successful. But the cost is higher than IVF, and IVF is already really expensive.

Another option Jay and I have discussed is adoption. This seems more likely for us because I feel as though it's less risky financially. We wouldn't be paying for a roll of the dice, like with IVF.

Of course the RE told us not to worry yet, it is to soon to worry. He had blood drawn to test the testosterone and FSH to see if the are low and we'll go from there. Jay also gave a sample for preservation and if it's any good it'll be frozen but if not, it'll be disposed of. The doctor wants us to try IUI this cycle if the sample is good enough for it.  I go back on Friday for a follow up. The clinic said we'd find out next week if the sample was good and the results of the blood tests. Then we'll know if IUI is happening, if IVF is possible and if the sample was sent to the cryobank.

Right now, I'm still under the impression that the VR is scarring over and that we'll have to choose another route besides natural conception, be it IVF or adoption, or maybe we'll just be done. It's a lot to process and decide. We'll be deciding for a while I believe.