Infertility

 Hey guys.... TGIF!! SOOOOO I have news..... I got a TATTOO! This is my 3rd and that is something I thought I would never say! LOL! But this wasn't a spur of the moment but something I have been thinking about for months! My good friend Rebecca was nice enough to come with me, which made it much more fun!!

The next pictures I call the many faces of pain. And I get it... this is a small tattoo and I am being a baby but you guys, the inside of your bicep is soft and I GREATLY underestimated the amount of pain. I got nauseous and had tears brought to my eyes! Luckily it only took a little over 30 minutes to complete this. 

 This is the Tattoo artist is who did my weenie dog for Oscar last year and when I showed him my ideas he took them and created something new that would look good. I trusted that he clearly knows best and he was so kind when I made him change the placement of the tattoo like 3 times before we started!! Look at my face... speaking of weenies, I look like a HUGE one.........

 This is the look of I HAD NO IDEA IT WOULD HURT THIS BAD combined with not breathing. Rebecca was a wonderful photographer, thanks friend!

SO here she is....... This is 9 Chevron/Arrowheads and each one represents an infertility procedure. 7 IUI's and 2 Rounds of IVF. They are in a row because as you go up it changes you and the pain from the tattoo reflects the pain of everything we went thru. This is also a play off of the Military ranking system... the more "Chevrons" you have the higher the rank and the more I went thru the more it changes you. This is also a reminder that I am MUCH stronger than I though I was and that I/we did everything we could. I did it, I survived what I thought at times I wound't. And I love that you wound't know the meaning of this unless I told you. 

OH ya, it hurts today... thats for sure and I will show more pictures as the swelling goes down and you can see the actual tattoo better. Maybe this will help bring me closure? That would be nice. 

Anyways..... I DID IT! ARGH!!!!!!

Decisions.... dum dum duuummmm

I wanted to open up to you guys today for a few reasons.......
1. Spilling my guts on here is therapeutic for me
2. I want to share with you all and be open about everything because of the feedback I have received over these few years.... it helps people and that helps me!
3. And You all... our family, our friends and our wonderful supporters online matter to us.

A few weeks ago Matt and I had a very real and very hard conversation about our future and what we want it to hold. But the future for us is the next year only, dealing with infertility it is best to only plan a year at a time we have found out. Mostly because so many different factors go into this and things can change on a dime. You know no one gives you a manual on how to deal with the news that you will never have biological children and then no one robs a bank for you either. So ya, money is a huge factor in this decision but we honestly set that aside and talked about how we feel. If we robbed a bank and got $30,000 plus in our laps would this decision change... maybe. But we don't actually know and for now we both feel at peace with our decision.

We decided that for the next year we are going to be US. It has been YEARS since we have lived without trying to conceive, years since we were not constantly sticking me with needles, emptying bank accounts on medical intervention and years since we stopped tracking time by my period. And trust me no one wants to count time by their period! HA! So this next year we are going to focus on US. Live our lives, focus on our careers, love on our fur-animals, go on vacations (I hope) and celebrate our 10 YEAR wedding anniversary next year. Then after our 10 year anniversary we will sit down and see where we are and how we feel. Matt mentioned that maybe we don't have children and I feel the same but in this space is that just the residual grief talking? Or in a year will we want to move forward with adoption? I can't answer that. What I can answer is that is has been just the 2 of us for 11 years this Christmas. Our first date was 11 years ago and we have come out ok(ish) LOL!!!!! Now, we do want to try and save.. I hope to sell a few houses so we can save money but first for us to have a savings again. We have like $300 in savings because of how much we spent this past year on 7 IUI's and 2 IVF's. We also want to finish our basement but we will see. So next year we are going to STOP revolving our lives solely on if we are pregnant. And ya, we both have a lot of healing to do.

I need people to know that especially like this past week when SO many friends announced their pregnancies I am truly happy for you. Why would I not be, I know how hard it is to get pregnant so YAY you, for real! SO very happy for you... your future baby has no bearing on my situation although people seem to think it must. The only thing is it makes me think.... will I ever get to "announce" we are having a child one day? Will I be ok if we never do? And those are valid questions to ask myself. And who knows that answer! And I hate how this situation, something I cannot control effects the way people are to me/us.. So stop it you guys! No, neither of us have officially dealt with the ramifications of the past few years but how do you? Really, how are you suppose to? For me I think all my emotions have been channeling into anger, which I don't like. Anger at situations and people who just act as if my life never happened, anger to those who cannot seem to not even once acknowledge what we have been thru. It doesn't take much time or effort to say "Hi, I love you, I am sorry." But it clearly must be...... I can't seem to move past it, I stew in it and I hate myself for it.

SO that is where we are, I did ask my Mom to stop saying "But you all would have the most beautiful baby ever, we will never see that" I know Mom, I know you are hurting too but that isn't good for any of us to hear anymore. And thats the truth, that is where we are and how we are moving forward as a couple. I still have some expensive IVF meds in my fridge, I am gonna offer them up again to anyone who wants them before I throw them out. I have loved helping 2 other girls with free meds, I like the thought that something good is coming out of our situation.

Failure (LONG post ahead)

This right here folks is what 7 Failed IUI's and 2 Failed IVF cycles look like in real life...........

 Oh ya, I am the proud recipient of each of those needles and honestly I will keep them. Possibly forever as a reminder of how strong I am and what we went thru. I know it sounds weird but if you have been thru it you'll get it. This is my participation trophy.

I use "most likely" a lot in this post and what I mean is there is always a .01% chance of a miracle.

SO last week in my IVF update post HERE  I told you all that after our IVF egg retrieval was cancelled my doctor did one last "Hail Mary" by inseminating me via our 7th IUI. Technically we shouldn't know if it worked or not until THIS coming weekend but my body decided that it didn't want us waiting around on pins and needles (ha) and it gave me the answer this weekend.... I started my period. So no, our 7th IUI has also failed. Starting my period 9 days early is crazy but not so bizarre, it's like after IVF your body is so mad at you that it literally wants everything out (gross, I know) so my period saying HOLA early isn't unusual. I have called my doctors office and informed them and we now have our follow up appointment/ discuss optional next steps THIS Thursday at 4:30.

What does this mean? We knew going into this IVF cycle that if these changes in medicines produced better results than last time but didn't work that we could possibly do a 3rd cycle. But we also knew that if this cycle didn't produce positive and better results than last time that "most likely" I would no longer be a candidate for IVF. And I shared that information with you all a few months ago. Since starting my period this weekend I am going to be honest we haven't had time to discuss this together, Matt and I nor have we had time to process what we are feeling. But oddly yesterday both of us felt like lying on the couch and watching movies all day. It was an unspoken feeling that we both needed a day to relax and give our brains a break.

How do you process that you just found out that you will "most likely" never have a biological child. Or at least not one from us both. You see after trying for 1 year and then 1 FULL year of infertility treatments this started out as a sperm problem then once we really got into IVF we realized this is an egg problem. Sperm, is an "easier" solution, you just need 1 good one of out the thousand you are given. But if you body doesn't give you an egg.... then your screwed. (or not screwed, hello... is this mic on? I'm trying to lighten the mood) SO we are going to learn more about an egg donor on Thursday. But even with an egg donor and if that becomes an embryo with the sperm I will still have to go thru an IVF cycle to "prep" my body for the embryo and I am going to be honest with you all as I have been with Matt........ I am not sure I can do it again. It sounds so easy when you type it out, like come on Nicole but after this last cycle and almost ending up in the ER, it's hard to describe but you guys I was so sick I cannot put it into words. I gave this MORE than a college try... ONE FULL YEAR of infertility treatments, needles, painful procedures, disappointment, money. And yes, WE both did this together but it's the women body who does all the heavy lifting. So ya, I talk in first person instead of we. I am 100% into learning more about the alternative options and my husband is someone who needs to exhaust everything before moving on, so we shall and we will.

Now, before someone comments and says "Why don't you JUST adopt" let me talk. Absolutely. It has always been something I am 100% open to. But we had to go down this path first, like I said exhaust all our options before moving in that direction. Am I ready to move to that path? Yes, I honestly think I am. But it is so complicated....... First of all after all we spent this past year where are we going to get $30,000-$40,000 to adopt? That doesn't magically happen and we haven't discussed this option yet between us, I am just speaking on the cuff here. Matt needs to focus on what is currently going on and not talk about what if. I like to talk about what if. We need to have this conversation about egg donor with our doctor on Thursday first, learn about that before Matt can have this second conversation with me also. If we choose this path of adoption we will need time to mourn. We haven't even had time to mourn what we found out this weekend. Time to grieve for what could have been, time to get our minds right before moving in a new direction. Infertility is so emotional in so many ways that you can't understand unless you go thru it. It is complicated and complex on a marriage also, we all deal with things differently. Me... sadly I have a hard time expressing emotion, hard time grieving this loss... I told my bestie on the phone last week I just "Can't" and she said she has cried everyday for me and I told her to keep it up.... express those emotions for me. ha! But for real. I push things down deep inside and they bubble up as anxiety....it's who I am. Matt doesn't like to discuss the negative and for him it bubbles up as rage. We are all different people and I know people who have done all this and it comes out differently for them too. I will say this time, this past week I have been MAD.... mad at the situation, mad at myself and mad at other people too. Why don't they understand what I am going thru I think and I get mad.... it's all so hard. And being sooooo honest and real on here is hard. I worry about people who will judge, who will think..... who the hell knows what they could think.....

But you know WHY I do this?????? Because over the past year as I walk you thru this process of mine I have gotten countless messages from friends who thank me. Because they did this and see themselves in me, friends who are doing this and don't know anyone else who feels like they do and people who are learning about what their friends and family have gone thru. THATS why I do this......
Sometimes I think maybe that is why I went thru all this, maybe I am a small voice for those who can't speak up about this. Who knows.

I will obviously let you all know how Thursday goes and what we learn our next steps could be, because I am an "over-sharer". HA! But really, I would like to hope Matt and I can spent some time learning about options and then pick one to put our positive thoughts and efforts towards. This wading in the water isn't my jam.
Once again thank you all for your kinds words and prayers... Thank you to my parents Sunday School class especially for all your prayers, I appreciate it. And right now pray that God can help us each work thru our own process of grief and that we can see clearly on what the next steps for us will be. And ya, more than anything I would LOVE to see what a small human made up of both Matt and I could be. Would it be a dancer? A baseball player like Matt? Would it be chatty like me? Who would it look like? Would he or she be blonde and have blue eyes like Matt and I? What personality traits of mine would they have or would they be more like Matt? And we will always have to grieve that, work thru getting past that and it will be something we will always have to continue to work thru.

XO-

SaveSave

Here's the thang.....

This will more than likely me a very unpopular post, but here's the thang....... I have all this nonsense in my head and I need to get it out. Hence, my blog and not everything I post is all sunshine and roses.... I post about real life and if you know me then you know I am very forthcoming.
Now, this post I can guarantee will be universally agreed upon by anyone who has or is going thru infertility. And I can also guarantee that this post will be useful for anyone who knows someone going thru infertility. Think of this as a guide to expand your mind. K, thanks.

1. "If you just relax, and remove all the pressure to conceive then I know it will just happen"....

Oh wait, you mean that if I have sex with my husband that could get me pregnant? I had no idea, why in the world didn't we try that first. SAID NO ONE EVER. Here is the thing people really get confused and have NO IDEA how to conceive a baby. It is scientifically IMPOSSIBLE to get pregnant during any given month unless it is during that special 3-4 days MAX that you are ovulating. And I swear even though a doctor has explained this to Matt and I even Matt gets confused sometimes. Recently someone told him that we should just relax and try at home... and how if we have sex every day during a month like they did then we would get pregnant. I tried explaining to my husband that they got LUCKY, they had sex on the right day that she was ovulating and clearly didn't have medical problems. SO good for them, but 80% of the days that month they had sex it was scientifically impossible for them to get pregnant.
Also please explain to me how knowing that a fertility specialist has given us a 2% chance of ever getting pregnant on our own... how us forgoing all medical intervention and taking the next few years of trying on our own... how will that be relaxing? I mean for real?

2. " This is all in God's timing, trust in his plan".......

Here's the thang, I am a Christian I have my own relationship with God and I believe in heaven. I pray to him daily about this process, it comforts me and prayer helps...your prayers help.  Now with that saying I also believe that God has nothing to do with this process.... hear me out. I 100% will never believe that God says " You see them, let's make them deplete all their savings and add in emotional components and years of trying to have a baby because it's not the right time" NO WAY. I know that God does know how our life will unfold, he knows before we are born BUT I believe in free will, environmental factors and all of that... that is what is making this complicated for us. Not because God has stopped us from having a baby until he wills it to be. You will never convince me otherwise. God does not make awful/bad things happen to us, I don't think he would do that...he is made of love. Bad things do happen though, sadly and he sees it but does NOT cause it. SO no, the fact that we are not pregnant is in no way because God hasn't said it's our time yet... or that our time has passed. So telling someone in my position "It's all part of Gods plan, trust it" is not helpful. at all. But telling them you are praying for them and here for them... is helpful.

3. "Why don't you stop and just adopt"....

Well, adoption costs start at $35,000 and go up. So until we and many others like us magically have that amount of money it isn't realistic. And I have nothing against adoption in fact if this works for us eventually and we have 1 child, I won't do this again.... I would 100% save for adoption if we ever want a second child. But we are not there yet. We still have a few resources left to try before we stop to discuss this. And I am not sure if this is an all guy thing but Matt keeps saying "I need my bloodline and name to be passed on" and that doesn't come into my realm of thinking. I could care less about our bloodline but since he is the last Savage male, he really has it in his mind that he NEEDS a child of his own from him. And for now I let him carry that thinking because it is giving him something to hold onto, I think.

Listen, it is just frustrating when people make you feel like what you are doing is wrong in some way. Or how God made us to have a baby one way, not in a doctors office... that is insane. God has given us smart doctors who help, I am thankful for that. It is just hard dealing with what goes on inside your own head during this process, dealing with how this effects your marriage without having to deal with judgment and uneducated comments from people. I realize that the majority of people have good intentions while some I know there is underlining... something. And one more thing do not let this scare you off, myself as well a most people going thru this do not mind you checking in with us at all. How is it going, asking questions about the process so you can learn is something I do not mind AT ALL!
 So that is my piece today, I do feel much lighter now that I got this off my chest. Thanks for letting me talk this out.

Round 4

Good Afternoon friends, the picture above was my view this morning per usual. If you can't tell our IUI #3 didn't take and I found out on Thanksgiving. My In-laws were in town and I did the whole meal, cooking all day and right before I was about to serve everything I ran to the bathroom and well..... I started my period. So... I gave myself a 5 minute pity party then told myself to lock it up and I walked downstairs and served Thanksgiving dinner. 

I will say this month was hard, I really felt good about it... we did 2 inseminations and all my levels were on par, so we really thought this was the month.... but it wasn't. So this morning I started the whole process over again fro Round #4! I think what devastated me the most when I found out it didn't take was that I have to do it all over again. My left arm is shot for a bit, we can't draw anymore blood from it for awhile so we started in on my right arm today. And I will be doing shots at home again this month. AND>.. if you are like me and needles petrify you, having an untrained NON-professioal AKA Matt come at you with needles is HORRIFYING! I am not joking, it's an ordeal. 

As of now we will be doing this month, and next if needed which will be round 5 and if that doesn't take them February we will start IVF which scares the crap out of me. But that will be a discussion.... the invasiveness, the money... it all has to be taken into account. I mean these 3 rounds plus this are not cheap.
But anyways all I can do is suck it up and try to put off positive vibes for this month. And I appreciate all of you who are doing the same. And what would a fertility post be from me without a snarky card..........

3rd Times the Charm

Don't you all just LOVE how I enjoy starting off all my infertility posts with a little sarcasm? But for real, Thank you to everyone who tells me this is in "Gods Plan" I feel much better about being poked by needles every week, having ultrasound sticks shoved up me and taking medicine that makes me crazy. BUT I digress.....

We have been trying to have a baby for over a year now as you know and have been working with our wonderful fertility team since July! No really, I LOVE my fertility team... the doctor and all the nurses are amazing. It's weird calling in or showing up at a doctors office and everyone knowing your name and story without looking.
Last month was our second try via IUI and sadly about 30minutes before everyone came over on Saturday for Matt's Birthday party I found out it didn't work. So that was disappointing and I didn't tell Matt until Sunday because I didn't want anything to ruin his party. Now... I know people try for years and it can take a TON of tries, so I am doing relatively well compared to some. So I am aware that I am not the only person who is and has gone thru this but like I always say this is my story and my feelings.

What happens now? We start all over again.... I go today for my Day 3 ultrasound, get my new prescription of drugs and this month we are adding in something really exciting... HOME SHOTS! No really, I am scared too death. I don't do needles and the thought of Matt giving me shots in my ass every night makes me want to cry! YAY me! Then in about 10 days or so we will go for round 3. 3rd Times the Charm, huh? This time I took the news better than last month, I think I was just trying to prepare myself this time so I wouldn't experience the sadness I did last month. But do you want to now what I think is the WORST side effect of all of this??? Not me giving blood (which use to make me pass out) but it is the Hot Flashes! They are so severe I don't sleep... All night every 30 minutes I wake up covered in sweat and kick everything off then 30 minutes later wake up freezing and this happens ALL NIGHT LONG! That is the worst thing for me so far!

Tales of Infertility...

Hi Guys! I am back from Vacation and this week I will have vacation updates for you AND a few Fall decorating posts.... so get excited! But you know what really kicks off a Monday right? A Debbie Downer post..... hahaha!

SO I wanted to update you all on our infertility journey, last time I posted I explained in this post HERE how we found out we won't be able to get pregnant without some sort of doctors help, so check out that post for more information.

Now the update is that last month we did our first IUI cycle and this picture below is me, on the doctors table after the procedure "relaxing" while Matt was playing on his phone a few feet away from me..... so ya, conceiving a baby is super sexy Y'all......And we are true Okies, I may not have any pants on but I am wearing my BOOMER SOONER shirt because it was Game Day! :)

But as of this weekend we found out that it didn't take. I am not pregnant. And I do have 2 friends where it worked the first time and 2 friends that took a couple of tries so this isn't completely unexpected just a HUGE bummer. This time around finding out we are not pregnant was the worst yet because of all the MONEY, time, medicine and everything that went into this time. Literally an entire month of our lives (or mine) was spent in the doctors office. So ya, it hurts but I have processed it and we are moving on.
Ok..... what now? Well I got to the doctor in actually 1 hour to start the WHOLE process over again. So wish us luck!