Beta #3

Even better news from today's third beta! Today's BETA came in at 1300 - that's a doubling time of 42 hours which is awesome! Also, my progesterone level went up to 14 - which means that the supplement is working! I can just stay on one dose a day and just for sanity's sake, I will go for one final beta and progesterone check on Friday. That way if for some reason the progesterone is shaky again, we can up to 2 doses per day. We couldn't be happier with these results.

The doctor said she will do an ultrasound at 8 weeks "or 7 weeks if you can't stand it." As much as we can't stand it, we will probably wait until 8 weeks only because that is our vacation week and it will be much easier to schedule an appointment that we can both be at. That will be the week of April 19th.

At this point, we have sent a note to the foster c.are agency to tell them that we are putting our application process on hold. At least we have finished all of the required training and we can entertain the idea in the future if we want/need to.

The happiest part of today is that I finally finished my School Law class - it was terribly boring and there was so much work to do for it! But, it's all over now!

Not Much

Nothing much to report here - just a few days left until I can start testing. Of course, I could list a million "symptoms" my body has, but we'll just leave that idea alone and wait to see what the real deal is!

Went to another training last night for foster parenting and have another tomorrow.

Really, things are kind of boring around here right now, but hopefully we'll have lots of excitement this weekend!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

AG-O-NIZ-ING!

That is how this TWW is going! I can't stand it any longer.... Today is 5dpo and it seems like it has been at least three times that long that we have been waiting. The good news is we are about halfway there until we can start testing. So it is all downhill from here I guess. Also, AF ALWAYS arrives 10 days past my inseminations. That is Friday, so, if she is not here by then, we can have a bit of hope! I did POAS this morning just to make sure the trigger is out of my system and it is. So, we know when we start testing on Friday, if it is a positive, it will be the real thing!

We have two more rounds of Foster Parent Training this week - Monday and Wednesday night. We have really been having a lot of discussions surrounding foster parenting and I think we are going to switch agencies. The main reason for this is that we want younger children - like under the age of five. The agency we are currently with does 10 and up only. So, we have some decisions to make with that, but we are going to see what happens with whether or not we are pregnant and then make some decisions.

I am going to add a little "cheat sheet" on the side bar for those of you who don't know what all of the acronyms are (POAS, TTC, etc) Check it out under our picture.

It is beautiful here today- going to be 50 degrees and the sun is shining. We'll go for a walk later and look at the two feet of snow still on the ground in the midst of this spring like weather!

Perfect!

That is how today went! I don't think anything could have gone better if we had wanted it to. We arrived at the doc's office at 11:20 so they could start thawing the sperm. We were called back at about 10 minutes to 12:00. When we went back I caught sight of one of the nurses with an oven mitt on her hand and for some reason I just thought it was the funniest thing that she was walking around carrying the sperm in her oven mitted hand. She said to us "I'm just warming up your kids!" That sent us into more laughter. Not sure why that caught us so funny, but it did.

The IUI was absolutely perfect. We had the doc that we just absolutely love do it. Funny thing is, she did our first one back when we started this journey three years ago. I said to MJ this morning, "Maybe we've come full circle and this really is our time to be pregnant." My body was perfectly ready - plenty of mucus (sorry if TMI) - cervix WIDE open. Normally, the doctors have trouble getting the catheter in through my cervix. They have to dilate me, reposition my cervix, something painful. Well, not today - the catheter went right in - no cramping, nothing! On the way out, the nurse who had the oven mitt asked us if we wanted to look at the kids under the microscope. Of course we said, "YES!" I have to say, they looked awesome!

The even better news was that if this cycle doesn't work, they won't throw us out the door. The Doc told us that we would have to take a mandatory 3 month break - lose some weight and up my Met.formin dosage. Well, I can handle that - at least there is hope. But, we are going to think positively that we won't have to go down that road at all because we will be pregnant.

Tomorrow night we start our first of five foster parent training sessions. It will be a long day as we will not be home until 9:30 tomorrow night. It's all for good though! We definitely aren't putting all of our eggs in one basket!

Moving Right Along

I went to the doctor yesterday and things are progressing nicely. I had a 17mm follicle on the left and an 11mm on the right . My lining was 9mm which is great! My estrogen level was 126, so that needs to rise a bit. I go for bloodwork again tomorrow - UUGGHH early on a Sunday morning. We'll see what the levels say tomorrow and I may possibly trigger tomorrow night. I ordered the sperm and they will be here for Tuesday morning. I will have the IUI either Tues or Wed depending on the bloodwork results!

We start our next round of Foster Parent training on Wednesday night. It will be a bit crazy as we will have 5 training sessions in 2 1/2 weeks. As soon as we go to the session on Wednesday, we can call and start the homestudy process.

We had fun today on our First Saturday Clubs. We went to our scrapbooking club and then to get our new quilt square kits. We ran a bunch of errands as well and had lots of fun at A.C Moo.re buying scrapbooking stuff. To make things even better, the weather here was BEAUTIFUL today - 55 degrees! It is supposed to be warm tomorrow too - it is doing a great job melting the snow.

Please spring, come soon!

I Taught Them Well!

As a teacher, you often think about past students and wonder how they are doing. After all, they were "my kids" for a whole school year and you invest an awful lot of time in these kids. You hope that they all go on to live productive, well educated lives. Well, imagine my surprise when not one, but two of my former students were on the front page of the newspaper today.

The first one made the front page because he was involved in a "possibly gang related" fight at W.al-m.art. The best part of the whole story - when he pulled his gun out, he shot himself in the abdomen. So, lets review- kid goes to W.al-M.art with a bunch of friends to start a fight, pulls out an unregistered, concealed weapon, and shoots himself - UGGHH!

Student number two was arrested after the vehicle he was riding in is pulled over and the police find two loaded rifles, mar.ijuana, and other drug paraphernalia. Oh, and did I mention that these rifles were stolen?! Then there is the fact that this student also had a warrant out for his arrest as well.

In all seriousness though, there is a part of me that is sad for these boys. What a life to be living already at age 17. If they had only had a family who invested in them when they were young. I had both of these boys in fourth grade and it didn't surprise me one bit when I heard about this. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these boys and they both had great personalities. I hope that maybe they can find a way to still turn their lives around.

In my mind, reading about these boys is just another reason why foster parenting is such a good thing. Hopefully by offering a stable home to a troubled child, MJ and I can give them some of the love and nurturing they need in order to head down a more positive path in their life.

TTC/Fostering Update

Wow, lots has happened in the past couple of days - I guess when it rains, it pours - or maybe I should insert SNOW in place of rain!! We got 6 inches Wednesday night, 6 inches Thursday night, and we are slated for another 12 - 16 today. Fun times! Can't mother nature visit someone else for a change?!

On the TTC front - I had my baseline ultrasound and bloodwork on Friday. All was well, so I started my meds on Friday evening. Now I get to "shoot up" daily for the next 18 - 20 days. I really love the Doctor's office that I go to. They are so nice and want so badly for us to be pregnant - if only their well wishes were enough!

The only disappointing part of the visit to the doc was that they told me that this is cycle 8 on injectibles and that is pretty much their limit on how many cycles they will do . A lot of this is because we don't really know the long term effects of these injectible medications. So, if we are not pregnant this time, we will have to consult with the head honcho to see what her recommendation is. In terms of where we are at, the only thing that will work for us is if we can maybe get them to do a couple more cycles in their office as IVF is not an option financially.

Based on the above news that our TTC efforts may be over sooner rather than later, we are even more happy that we attended our first foster parent training yesterday. This is DEFINITELY something we are ready to pursue and we are excited about the possibility of welcoming a child into our lives who so desperately needs a home.

The training itself was LONG and BORING!!!! But at least it is 6 hours down for the 21 that we need. The next step is to take our classes - ther are 5 of them that are 3 hours each. We will do these starting March 11 and we will be done on March 25. Then, we will have a homestudy, fire inspection, be fingerprinted, get references together, etc. My guess is that we can be licensed by the end of April.

We were defnitely impressed with the agency which helps a lot! They are a private agency and they offer many supports to their foster parents. We may have to wait a little longer to get a child through this agency because the majority of the children they work with are teenagers and we want to work with kids under 10. They said it isn't impossible to get young kids, it just may take some time.

So, we are moving along with lots going on! We also get to enjoy February vacation this week - one of the fabulous perks of being a teacher! We are going to just hang at home for the week with just an overnight trip to a casino with some friends. Should be fun!

Another Update..

Some of you have been asking if we are putting TTC on the back burner and the answer is NO! We will be trying again in a couple of weeks. If that doesn't work, we have April and June as well. At that point, I think we are done TTC. It will be 12 tries, and more than 3 years. We don't have coverage for IVF, nor do we have the finances to pay for it ourselves. We are definitely still holding on to that glimmer of hope that we will be able to have a child of our own.

In foster parenting news, I talked with a super nice lady from the agency last night and got lots of information. We will definitely be attending the training on the 21st and we can have all of our other training modules done in March - we just have to call and sign up.

The only bit of bad news (if you want to call it that) is that this agency pretty much only deals with kids from grade 5 and up. We were really hoping for YOUNGER children. The benefit of this agency is that the kids they have are all pretty much looking for permanent homes. If we went through DCYF - those kids usually come to stay for a while and then go back to their families. So, we have alot of decisions to make. This agency said that it is not impossible to get younger children, we would probably just have to wait.

So, we have decided that we really want to stick with this agency as it is a private agency VS. working with DCYF which is state funded. Nothing against DCYF, but working as teachers, we know how underfunded, understaffed, etc state agencies are. Since we feel strongly that we would like to stay with this agency, we are going to let the chips fall as they may and really work with them to find what will fit best for our family in terms of placement of a child.

That's the update from here!

We've Started the Process

We received our packet in the mail for Foster Parenting this weekend. It was very exciting! The best part is that the agency we want to work with "values diversity in all areas including gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation." I am so excited about that! It is great to be able to work with an agency that will value us for who we are and not judge us because of our lifestyle!

So, we dropped our initial Interest Survey in the mail today and have sent an email to sign up for the first two modules of training on February 21. The ball is rolling, and we are excited about it! Keep your fingers crossed that things go smoothly for us throughout the process.

From the research we have done so far, we need to do the following:

1. Background/Fingerprint check
2. Doctor's Statement saying we are physically able to care for a child
3. Application
4. Home Study
5. Fire/Safety inspection of home
6. 21 - 24 hours of training to get licensed

We'll keep you posted.

Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands...

We haven't updated on out TTC plans lately, so here is the long awaited information. February marks three years since we started this heart breaking TTC journey. Three years is a long time. A lot of months of heart break, many months of waiting. Different meds, different protocols, etc. It is a time of extreme highs and lows, and it really takes its toll on you.

In a few weeks we will try again - mid February ish. I am about halfway through my current cycle. So, when af comes to visit again, I will go for cycle day 2 blood work and ultrasound. Then comes the daily shot of Follistim and blood work and ultrasound appointments. My guess is that we will inseminate the beginning of March. We have decided that we will try three more times and that will probably be it.

So, last night we were talking about what our ultimate goal was. As much as we want a baby, really our ultimate goal is to have a family. There is only so much we can control in the TTC process. We can take the meds, monitor my ovaries, etc, but when it comes down to it, we can't MAKE the sperm and egg meet and implant. So, last night we sent for information about becoming Foster Parents. There are so many kids out there who need a loving and stable home and we can provide that for them.

I have a renewed excitement at this new way that we may begin our family. We'll keep you posted.

Another Month, Another Negative

Well, the title says it all - we are not pregnant again this month. This SUCKS - plain and simple. We felt so good about everything this time, I ovulated, the timing seemed perfect, the swim team was great. In all seriousness, I think I have a fertility problem. More than the fact that I need to buy sperm. It took my mom a really long time (like 5 - 6 years) to have my brother and I, and since I am like her in so many ways, I think I have the same issues. The problem is compounded by the fact that as my doctor so nicely put it - "you don't just have access to sperm 24/7 which makes things even more difficult."

So, where do we go from here? We will try one more time in August - I have to take a month off in between due to the fact that my ovaries need to calm down from the meds. Plus we'll be in Disney. We can't go to a specialist because then my insurance won't cover it. We found this wonderful loophole where my insurance will cover monitoring to "diagnose" the problem, but will not cover the inseminations or seeing a Reproductive Endocrinologist. Since my meds alone are around $2000 a month and the monitoring (ultrasounds/bloodwork) is right close to that as well, clearly there is no way we can afford that. IVF and adoption are out of the question as well, unless we win the lottery or something. Nevermind the fact that this upcoming cycle will be the 6th cycle on injectibles. No one really knows the long term effects of these drugs and I think my body is about done with them.

Well, let's keep our fingers crossed that maybe try #9 in August will be the one - at that point we will have been TTC for 2 1/2 years. If it isn't, we'll have to make a decision as to whether or not we seriously pursue foster care, or just be happy living our lives together - just us. Who knows.....