The result are in...

I had my HSG today, which wasn't overly painful, I had a lot of anxiety but I managed to stay relaxed. It was not comfortable at all and I had quite a bit of cramping, but then directly afterwards I went in the bathroom (5 feet away from the table) to change and I got really sick. I passed out a few times, and ended up laying on the disgusting hospital bathroom floor for like 10 minutes, I was clammy and sweaty and nauseous.. it was miserable. Finally after about an hour I felt back to normal, just drained from the whole thing! But my tubes were clear and my uteris looked "perfect" so I got an A from my dr :-) So now we try one last time naturally and then I start IUI next month!

Thanks for praying!

HSG today

Well, at 12:30 today I have my HSG (hysterosalpingogram) to make sure my uteris and fallopian tubes are clear and working.

My mom is going with me, but I'm a little nervous. This can be a very painful procedure, but hopefully will be quick! I will hear/see the results right away and I'm just praying for clear tubes. I don't know if we could afford the surgery or alternative treatments if they were blocked.

I'll keep you updated.

BM dresses and IF do NOT mix

Yesterday I ordered my bm dress for my SIL's wedding in October. So like any woman TTC, I ordered it 1 size too big, hoping I will squeeze nice and pregnantly (not a word, I'm sure) into it by October. However, the skeptical woman in me says, "you should have ordered it too small, then surely you'd be pregnant by then. Don't you know ordering it too big in preparation for being pregnant CURSES you!??!"

Now, I'm sure the Good Lord is upstairs rolling His eyes at me thinking "Rachel, you don't honestly believe a bm dress could POSSIBLY prevent you from getting pg do you? Haven't we come farther than that?" But I can't help it! It's so dumb, all these superstitions... like buying new expensive clothes will instantly make you pregnant, or buying tampons or dying your hair....

I know it's stupid. But I can't stop thinking about how if that dress has to be taken in because by October I'm not pregnant, I will be so sad. So miserably sad.

CODE:
BM = Bridesmaid (NOT bowel movement.. hee hee)
SIL= Sister-in-law (Jenny Williams)

Please pray for the Morrison 6

In case you haven't read/seen/heard the news, there is a young couple in MSP that gave birth on sunday to sextuplets. They were 22 weeks along. The odds of them surviving or having a "normal" life at 22 weeks are very slim. 22 weeks is just so early. Now I fully believe God's hand is completely over this situation and He is the God of miracles and He can do ANYTHING. And that's all the more reason this family needs as much prayer as possible! I couldn't hardly go to sleep last night as I couldn't stop praying for them. Please keep them in your prayers

morrison6.com

We don't know the condition of the babies, other than they're in critical condition. The family has not updated the media yet.

Thank you.

1 yr ago today...

Our very dear friends were blessed with two little bundles of joy! After struggling with IF for three years, God gave them 2 of the greatest gifts ever created, twin baby boys. These friends endured five artificial inseminations and IVF after IVF. Finally after their third try, they were pregnant! Now today we celebrate the first birthday of two of the cutest boys you will ever see!! They are truly a testiment of the love and faithfulness of our God and Savior!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEAS! (names are being kept out)

Rachel & Joey

New look, still me :-)

I'm still here, I just wanted a new fresh look!

very cool visual

To get a visual demonstration of how IUI and IVF work, click here. It will walk you through and show you the procses!

VERY NEAT. Thanks MSNBC!

Click Here

Exciting news (no I'm not pregnant)!!

A while ago I felt God was telling me to look for a support group either in my community or church that deals with infertility. Well little did I know (He knew I would run for my life if I
did!) He would eventually ask me to START and LEAD one at my church! This has been a long process that started back in March and I had NO intentions of starting, or leading anything!! EVER! But God has amazed me over and over again by making everything happen simply and smoothly and all in His perfect timing!

Finally after several months of planning and praying, an announcement will be going out in the bulletin at my church for this group. I know there are many people don't have the desire to share their IF struggles with others, but God has NEVER shown me more about His grace and love and blessings than when I "Came out" about our struggles. And my prayer is that others would have the chance to grasp some of the Joy I have experienced through this agonizing journey, even if only sharing with others going through the same thing.

I am VERY excited about this and I would love prayer for this group and for the women who might be fighting internally about joining the group simply because of shame or embarrassment. Satan would love nothing more! So we must pray!

Thanks for your continued support!

TOTAL Vent!!

So our cabinet that we're waiting for (to finish our kitchen) came in DAMAGED AGAIN! I'm so frustrated. It's not the end of the world, but now we have to live in our house for two weeks without a kitchen put together. There's tools and dust everywhere, so it'll be hard to "Set up house" like that. But oh well, I guess that's what we have to do!

Hopefully they compensate us for some of this.

4 years

I realized last night as I was drifting off to sleep that even if we were to get pregnant this month (and I have stopped playing that game... too draining) but if we were, we would be married four years before having a baby. So from here on, we have moved into the next year of our marriage. I used to wonder if we'd be married two years when we had a baby, and then three, and now four. We are nine months away from our four year anniversary. I just pray we'll have a baby within that four years, and not have to move onto five or six years.

I don't know why this makes me sad. There's nothing wrong with being married four years before having a baby. In fact it makes us all the more sturdy and ready. But still. This wasn't how we planned it. And that makes it hard.

Perfect words from Lamentations

I'm being a posthog today! sorry, but I had to share.

I got an email from a dear friend of mine from church who recently had her second (beautiful) child. She has a pure heart of a Godly woman and is full of compassion. While she hasn't been through IF, she suffered a terrible miscarriage in between her first and second child. She understands fully the pain and sorrow of not having the child that you desperately want to love.

She sent me a very encouraging email with these amazing verses at the end. I would assume it's from the message translation: Thank you Stacy.

Lamentations 3:21-33
21 But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: 22 God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. 23 They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! 24 I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left. 25 God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. 26 It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. 27 It's a good thing when you're young to stick it out through the hard times. 28 When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. 29 Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. 30 Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The "worst" is never the worst. 31 Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. 32 If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. 33 He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way...

Thank you Stacy.

IUI frequently asked questions

In case any of you are more interested in the process of IUI, here's a very easy read:

Click Here

Also, the success rates are anywhere from 6% to 25% a cycle. Rate for mutlipltes are 20-30%.

life

We're moving on friday, FINALLY! Our new cabinet hasn't come in yet, but hopefully it will by then so we can get our kitchen finished! I have such conflicting emotions about the move though. I am SO sad to leave Cambridge and my sister and her kids and all the time I get to spend with them. But I can't wait to live in my house again, and be closer to Bridgit and the boys, I feel like I hardly ever get to see them, which is hard. But I hate feeling like I'm giving up one set of kids for the other. Why can't we all just live close?!? It was the same way when we moved to cambridge.

Anyways, yesterday I had a blood draw to check my estrodial and FSH levels. I haven't heard anything so I assume they're normal. They said they would call if they weren't. I have my HSG scheduled for next wed at noon and my mom is going to go with me. I have heard they can be really painful and I feel like I have suffered enough pain (internally) to now subject myself to physical pain. But it's what I have to do. I just hope it isn't too painful because I'm a big baby :-(.

We had Ella and Tucker over last night to sleep with us. Tucker was over here on monday too :-) I love having them here. Tate was at Oran's so he'll have to come to our fridley house next time! It's so wonderful to wake up in the middle of the night, or bright and early to such a sweet adoring face. And the wonderful noises that come out of that child's mouth! It's all I want in our life. I sometimes wish I could just steal the babies :) But don't worry...I won't!

I'm doing all right today. I'm not crying or anything, but I just feel so down. I am ready to be pregnant and looking forward to life instead of worrying so much about never having that. I just don't like this.

We're going on vacation with my family next weekend for a week at a cabin in WI. I cannot wait! I hope it is so good for all of us, refreshing and relaxing. I can't wait!

ugh.

I have no other way to describe today. Ugh is the way I feel. But if you must know how "ugh" feels, then it feels: sad and tired, annoyed and crabby, poopy and sickly, mad, frustrated and again... sad. That's how "ugh" feels today.

AF came (as I knew she would) but it's still so stinken hard!! Both Joey and I were really sad last night. At least for me I'm in my body so I can tell when it's coming or if I *might* think I'm pregnant, but for him all he can do is hope, he doesn't have a clue what's going on inside of me.

So now we're on cycle #21. Ridiculous. Pitifully ridiculous. It is not suppose to take this long!

I have nothing positive to say today, I am just sad and mad.

I'm tired

We had a long weekend of working on our house and moving. We haven't completely moved in, but we've gotten a ton of the projects done at our house and most of our stuff is moved there. But I am tired and sore from painting all day on Sat.

In IF news we're still waiting (like normal). I'm 9dpo and I'm just waiting for AF to show up. When that happens I can schedule my b/w and HSG. If for some reason it doesn't come, then I get to POAS (pee on a stick). Judging by the way my body feels, I'm expecting AF.

If you need help with the above abreviations:

IF: Infertility
DPO: Days past ovulation
AF: aunt flo/menstrual cycle
B/w: Bloodwork
HSG: hysterosalpingogram
POAS: Pee on a stick

Nothing like packing to take your mind off sorrows

Man, I thought packing to move completely out of our house what hard!! NO WAY, this is way worse! We have so much junk shoved into this tiny little room in every single corner and empty space. I am throwing tons of stuff that I know I don't need to bring home with me, but I still feel guilty throwing away perfectly good stuff.... and the garage sale is already over :-)

But in the mean time it occupies my mind with other things.. hopefully this 2ww (2 week wait) will be over before I know it. I'm only on 4dpo (4 days past ovulation)!

Well hello tears, I haven't seen you in a while...

This has been an interesting week for me. Although I have a newfound hope with our plan moving forward, I still have cried several times this week, and not just a little, but a lot. I haven't really cried a ton in the last 2 months so 3 times in a few days is a lot!

I think for so long I have focused on getting pregnant and being pregnant. But lately I've let myself drift into the land of imagining motherhood and what I will be like with a baby and Joey as a daddy and what a void we really have in our life right now not having any children. Going down that road brings a new sadness in my heart. One I'm not sure I can handle, so I can't venture there often.

Don't get me wrong, I love the time Joey and I have together and have had for over 3 years now. But it's time. We have the hearts of parents and it's time to take the next step. There's no doubt about it, we are ready. And I believe we will be better parents because of it. Not better than the next guy, but better than we would have been had we gotten pregnant 2 years ago, or our first time trying. We will be better because we know what it means to fear not having a family and we will be more ready for it than we ever could have been before.

For that, I am thankful.

Update: We have a PLAN!!

We saw the RE yesterday and it went really well! We walked away with a plan, which we are so relieved about :-)

I am scheduled for a few blood tests and an HSG for this next cycle (sometime in June). The HSG is a fancy ultrasound that will make sure my tubes and uteris are clear and in working order.

We have been diagnosed with unexplained IF which means there's basically no reason for us not getting pregnant.

In July after the tests we will start Intra Uterine Inseminations (IUI) which are also known as artificial inseminiations. We are hoping the first one works but we can do really as many as we want.

These should really increase our chances of getting pregnant and since we have no known reasons for not "working" we're really praying these work!!!

Thanks for caring and praying.

Rachel & Joey

coincidence? I think not!!

Okay so we will be leaving in like two minutes for our first reproductive endocrynology (RE) appt!! But I have to share, so my sister and I had a garage sale yesterday and although it's not done, I took away $200 from it. Then I was given a gift of $100 for our appt today from someone very special to me (not sure I should share who?), then I got home and had a $85 rebate check from excel from the storm that left us powerless 21 months ago!!

All totaling: $385.

Guess how much our appt costs today (we have to pay upfront)? $385!! Wow. I hadn't even considered God would be so obvious in His ways! But I guess He is! Now I feel 100% at ease going to this appt. I believe that was His way of letting me know we're on the right track! :-)

Boo for bad insurance!

So I decided it was time for a reality check. I pulled out the fee schedule for our RE and added up what our initial testing was going to cost. $2997. Yep, and that doesn't count the $700 we've already spent with the OB. Too bad our money is going to be gone before we know it :-(

It would be so much cheaper to just get drunk and knocked up. I'm sorry, that was uncalled for, I'm just frustrated. :-/