I Intend To Be A Parent

Hi Guys, bear with me... you know if you are a long time reader that when I have something important to say I can ramble or jump around topics.... today will be on of those days! I am gonna update you on our journey as well as answer some questions I have been getting. Like I always say... I am not a perfect writer but it comes from my heart.

I found out yesterday morning that our IUI #5 did not take. (I am now sitting here trying to decide what to write next, it's been 10 minutes........) Ok, after the disaster that last month was with me really letting myself get my hopes up only to be crushed I will say yesterday was better. (to read last months post click HERE) But sadly I am not sure that is a good thing, I had a real hard time this month and especially into this last week balancing the act of having Hope but not setting myself up for disappointment. I will admit I do not know how to balance that, at all. Starting Feb 1 we will have officially been trying to have a baby for 1 & 1/2 years and I know some people try MUCH MUCH longer but like I say, our journey is ours. AND... that is a long time. This enters our 7th month at our fertility clinic and we are so thankful for our whole team. SO......
What Happens Now?
This past Monday we spent some time with our Doctor making a plan and having our IVF consult. After a long talk we have decided to put our name on the IVF wait list which is out to April now and in the meantime starting today (Day 1, new cycle) we will do 1 more IUI. IF this IUI #6 does not work then starting in March we will prep my body for IVF. This will also give us until April for Matt and I to try and work out the finances of IVF. Without insurance EACH cycle runs between $17,000- $30,000 per try. We do have great insurance that our portion of that is still not something we have just sitting around. Matt says... IUI #6 will work and he doesn't want to discuss past that but we have to. Can we afford to move on? And it's scary how invasive IVF is. But anyways that is what our plan is. Before we left our doctors office he gave me this and told me to repeat it to myself 3 times a day as a mantra and I want to share it with you all. I know it could be helpful to some of you......

Now, I want to answer some questions I have been getting from all of you...

Why would you share this journey with everyone?
I get asked this a lot and I know a ton of you are super private so this confuses you but there are 2 answers.
1. You know me, I am an open book at all times. A great friend of mine once gave me valuable insight by telling me that the fact that I am an open book scares people. And people feel intimidated by it, which is weird because I am only self deprecating to myself but it's the fact that maybe I feel confident in my own story.
2. The more important answer is..... Since I have been sharing our journey I have had friends privately message me to tell me their own Infertility journey which is so helpful and comforting. And then I have had countless people message me to ask me questions because they are just starting on this journey themselves. When you are going thru something so taxing it is BEYOND helpful to have someone to turn to and the fact that I could be that for someone else, makes me feel so blessed. Because I have a couple of people who are that for me right now ( YOU know who you are) and I am SO grateful!

Do you guys wish you had tried earlier, why wait so long?
Yes, people actually ask that... quite often and I have answered this in the past but I love to answer it again. NO, I have no regrets. For one even if we had tried to conceive 8 years ago when we got married our doctor doesn't even know but we could have run into these problems then. Our challenges are NOT 100% related to our age. Let me say that again for people who are CONVINCED we did this to ourselves by waiting until we are 35 .... Our infertility is NOT 100% based on our age!
Now, what is frustrating is that people do not see that we waited until we were settled, we have a home, Matt has a wonderful job and we waited until we were in a really good place in our marriage to bring a child into it. And if you ask me that is the smart decision we would make again.

I get many questions on Clomid and fertility drugs from people just starting. How do they effect me?
This could be different for each person but for me the main side effect I get is intense hot flashes. SO much so that most nights I wake up every 30 minutes either freezing while I pull covers on or covered in sweat where I pull covers off. I am more emotional, but is that just this intense journey that I am on or the medicine... gosh, who knows. The shots I am on give me more side effects, they make me sick to my stomach and they make my boobs hurt more than I could ever explain. So those are the main ones to be ready for I would say.

Here is a question I got last week: How much is all this costing, my husband and I are scared to start with a fertility clinic, what if we can't afford it?
This is tough and a joke amongst people dealing with infertility is that "We already spent the kids college fund trying to make him or her". BUT we are luckier than most due to my migraines we have the top insurance there is, I mean it costs us but we are benefiting from it now.  Each IUI cycle can run you $3,000- $5,000 per try and we are entering #6. So that could of cost us about $30,000 thus far but we have been out around $6,000 so far. Which is SOO much for us still.
Now, IVF like I said can run upwards of $30,000 PER TRY. Our share will be around $6,000 per try. So yes, it is unbelievably unfair how much infertility costs. It's sad is what it is. And that is a personal decision you and your significant other have to decide what works for you. But what is even more sad is that adoption costs start at around $35,000. unreal.

How is your husband handling this?
Matt is much more private than me, so although he knows I am open and a blogger I still hold back on certain details to protect Matt and his wishes. Matt works like 12 hours days so he has a lot to keep his mind occupied. Matt is also a very very eternal optimist which is great but his reply is "IUI #6 will work, so there is no need to discuss anything further" but I think all guys deal with what is in front of them at that moment. It's hard, while your infertility can be a shared responsibility 99% of everything is on the female and her body.

Friends, thank you all for sharing in this journey with us and please feel free to reach out to me with anything. You can always email me at nsavage@live.com
And another thing I want to share before I go is that while on this journey I can be 100% happy for my friends who become pregnant, truly happy. You can be truly happy for others while being sad for yourself.

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!

#BabyMakingDays

Thanks to Fertility Planit for sponsoring this post and giving me a Clearblue® Fertility Monitor. While I have received compensation for this post, all opinions are my own.

Where to begin my friends, probably with the obvious that The Savage's are trying to have a baby! I know, I know finally after seven years of marriage the time is right! Most people gave up asking us "When are you going to have a baby" after year two and we were completely fine with that and now here we are!

What took us so long? 

The answer is easy, we wanted to be in the best place we could be in our marriage before bringing a baby into our lives. The past seven years have been hard for us with Matt switching careers within Farmers and us uprooting our lives (TWICE) to move across the country. All of that created stress in our lives and in our marriage which we worked thru. We may have fought thru some (or most) of it but we made it! This past year after our move to Denver things just seemed to CLICK for us. We entered into this wonderful, new phase of our marriage and we needed it! 

When did we make the decision to start trying?

We talked about it over the Summer last year and decided that we would make our Mexico Vacation last October (to celebrate our anniversary) the kick off! So I wouldn't count October as a "full month of Trying To Conceive" but we have been trying since then! It's funny how your whole life your goal can be to "Not have a baby" and then when your goal is to have one you just assume it will magically happen over night! Well... it doesn't, so that leads me to today!

How did it come about that I have connected with Fertility Planit?

I was asked to participate in their #BabyMakingDays campaign and talk about some "act of the universe" that we are actually trying to conceive... so it was a match made in Heaven, huh?!

Sharing our #BabyMakingDays journey with everyone is exciting and scary! But I pride myself on being an open book so why wouldn't I share this with you all as well. As for Matt? He is all on board, in fact when I discussed this opportunity with him he was the one who said "Why would you not?"

I am also really lucky to be one of the first people to receive the new Fertility Monitor with touch screen. In the coming weeks I will be sharing our journey with you and trying out the new Clearblue® product below! I am excited to learn how it works and how it can help us in the process of TTC.  The Clearblue® Fertility Monitor with Touch Screen helps you maximize your chances of getting pregnant because it is designed to detect all your fertile days and at my age and with almost four months of TTC having past this will be a huge help!

We are all in now!! I am excited to share this journey with you!!!!!! #fertilityfriday 

Learn more about #BabyMakingDays with Clearblue® by 

Following them on Facebook  

Twitter 

And by visiting the Clearblue® website.