A new adventure

2011 has been a busy year for our family. Justin and I have been pursuing career and education goals, taking care of our nutty dogs, trying to keep up with our very busy families, playing on rec league sports teams, attending Bible studies, subbing Sunday School, fixing this old house, and trying to grow our family. I know - yes, we have 3 dogs and we still want kids. :)

The purpose of this blog is for us to be able to document our pursuit of children for our own sake as well as to share our story with our many loving family members and friends that we are so grateful for. This first post is going to be a long one, so bear with me. Over the past few months I have found it exhausting to tell various medical stories over and over again, especially if the story is not a happy one. We wanted to find a way to give out the information so that we can celebrate the good times and get support for the tough times. God has taught us so many lessons in 2011, but one thing that stands out to me right now is His never-ending faithfulness. Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I learned earlier this year that I am infertile. I cannot begin to describe the pain that engulfed me with this news, so I won't even try. I believed God though. I knew that He had a plan for me and that it was a good plan, but it just took a long time for my emotions to catch up with my brain. At times I picture myself as a child having a temper tantrum. I knew I had to do whatever God was telling me to do because He knows best but I just didn't want to sometimes. There have been at least two times in the past months where God has revealed His perfect timing to me. Each time I catch a glimpse of what He's trying to show me, it's as if He's saying "Don't you see? I know what I'm doing." Anyway, I digress. I just can't help but share all that I am learning about my God, how much he loves me and how much I can trust Him to see us through all of this. There are days where I have not felt this way, but I always know it and if I can just get through the dark days, the good days always come back.

Through prayer, Biblical counsel, studying the Word, research research and more research, we have finally come to the decision that WE ARE PURSUING IN VITRO FERTILIZATION!!!!! I will be posting all the details as we move along this course of action. Full disclaimer, some things may be a bit TMI but we are also using this as our journal so we want to make sure to capture it all -the good the bad and the ugly!

On 12/12/11, I had a mock transfer and a saline ultrasound in the morning and then we had our IVF class in the afternoon. Holly, my wonderful sister-in-law took me to my morning appointment since Justin was taking a test at ECU. The mock transfer is where the doctor basically does a pretend transfer of the embryo into my uterus. The saline ultrasound was to take a look at my uterine wall to ensure it was smooth and a good place for a baby to live. Both of these things went well. In the afternoon was our class with the nurse which Justin was able to make. Good thing since she had to teach us about these millions of hormones that he will have to inject me with - I don't know if I could stick a needle in my stomach on my own. Justin seemed way too excited to learn about jabbing me with a needle. He made the nurse crack up laughing because he asked, "so do you want me to tell you when I am about to give you the shot, or just surprise you?" Really? Really, Justin? Only my husband. The nurse said she had never heard that question before. Jeepers.

Even though he is getting too much pleasure out of the thought of jabbing a needle into me, Justin totally rocks. Best.Husband.Ever. I am in awe of the marriage that God has given me. All of these appointments happened on my birthday, and before we left for the IVF class, he gave me this card with this note:

He's a keeper.

So our next steps are to wait for my cycle to start (any day now), then start taking birth control pills to suppress my ovaries. They also drew blood for a series of routine lab tests for both of us and those need to come back before we move on past this point. Once my ovaries are doing whatever it is that the doctor wants them to do (be 'quiet' as the nurse said), we will being the hormone treatments. That will go on for about 2 and a half weeks, then they will extract my eggs, mix them with Justin's sperm and grow the babies in a petri dish. 3 to 5 days after that, I will go back to have up to 2 embryos inserted. My doctor says he will not exceed that number, so we have decided that we will freeze any embryos leftover and carry them to term at a later date.

Sorry for such a long post. The next ones should not be so time consuming! Thank you for reading, praying and supporting us. We understand that IVF does not result in a live birth 100% of the time, but we also know that God's will is 100% correct all the time. As I told my parents, we know God is not going to harm us. He's either trying to give us a baby(ies) or teach us something. Either way, we will get something out of this experience.