The Update Finally...

So I left off with how frustrated I felt by CD25 and no BFP... Just to put it in perspective I woke each morning with my POAS ritual and added to my supply of used pee tests... all showing me BFN after BFN.

On March 31st I laid down next to my hubby sure all the pregnancy symptoms I had were in my head and I was a loony Birdie with a psychological pregnancy because of wanting it so bad. I questioned my hubby, "Are you sure God told you this is the right time? Because I feel like crap and since I just went back to work and people are coughing and sneezing all over me I think I'm coming down with a bug... I keep getting negatives and I feel like CRAP!" Love looked at me and patted my arm, "Birdie, I promise God told me you were going to get pregnant and this is the time we are going to finally have a baby of our own. Don't doubt God, He's got this." (Me in tears) "Okay, but I'm scared and I'm trying really hard to hold onto my Faith, but maybe Dr Awesome was right, I'm old... maybe my eggs are crusty and dusty and old... maybe they aren't COUGAR EGGS.... What then?" Love kissed my forehead and 'said, they are good eggs, and we will have a baby Birdie. I love you." The next morning, CD26and12DPO I sat on the toilet and said a prayer, God, I'm not bargaining, I just wanted to let you know that I accept your will. Positive or Negative, I will praise you. You have all knowledge and power, and you work all thing together for your good. If we are pregnant Lord I pray that you show me now so I may share this blessing and confirmation with our Church family, They have been praying for our treatments and praying over our family for so long Lord. I want this baby to show glory to you. Amen. PS I really want to surprise our Sr Pastors! AMEN They have been our biggest cheerleaders on the sidelines... they were labeled barren and went onto have 5 children after medical intervention failed. So infertility has been a huge part of their life, and their Faith. I took the test and saw this on April 1st:

Our April Fools Day Surprise! I immediately composed myself and kept squinting and twisting the test back and forth in the dim light at 6:45am... When I ran to the bedroom and laid down I nudged my snoring my hubby... "Love?....Love?" I whispered and he groggily responded, "Huh what? is it time to get up for church? It's really dark in here." I replied, "When our baby is talking what do you want him or her to call you? Baba, Daddy?" He opened his eyes and said Daddy I guess... Then I said well good because your are going to have to start thinking about this stuff, because WE'RE PREGNANT!" and I showed him my "squinter positive!" When we got to church we told our Pastors and Love flagged down basically all 3500 fellow parishioners to tell them! I got to tell about 5 people... but thats okay, It feels good seeing my husband beaming with pride over this long awaited and anticipated pregnancy... Just to be sure it wasn't the worst April Fools joke ever, on Monday morning I took my last 2 tests! and here they are:

Yep folks I took 19 tests in all and had 3 positives after our trigger shot ran out of my system...

Our First Beta was scheduled for Tuesday, and it came in at 90.5 and our 2nd Beta came in today at 211! We are rising nicely and now wait for our first U/S on April 23rd at 7am. I have to continue to take prometrium because my progestrone level is 23.5 and the doctor wants to ensure our pregnancy sticks!

CD25 and 11DPO dIUI

Hey everyone! My progesterone level was 12.4 when checked and I was told by Dr Awesome's Nurse that he is very happy with that to keep up the progesterone suppositories and that I ovulated well. I've been POAS every single day and they have all been negative once my trigger shot went out of my system... I had some low back ache and crampy low belly stuff going on this past Wednesday 8DPO and I was told that could be implantation pain. I thought it felt kind of like my normal PMS stuff, but its gone not. I have absolutely no PMS symptom stuff going on now. I do however have some sensitivity to smells and yesterday and today I've had more acid reflux stuff going on. This morning I woke pretty queasy. I've been told all of this stuff is potential early pregnancy symptoms. Still praying this worked and that we will have a little one come Christmas time!

CD8 and an Update!

Dr Awesome decided because of my cycle last month that he would like this cycle to be medicated for our dIUI. I started my Femara (Letrozole) on Friday, my CD3 through yesterday on CD7. Overall I haven't had any real side effects but then again I've had a sinus thing going on with some low grade fever and attributed my headaches and hot flashes to that... Monday is CD 13 and we are scheduled for an ultrasound first thing in the morning with a follow up insem and trigger if all goes well. We are doing insems 2 days in a row. I feel at peace with this TTC journey. We have been through so much over the past 3 years from failed surrogacy attempts, my hubby's stroke and following recovery, and dropping toxic family members. Love and I have rebuilt our life and went from being in a dual income household, to nothing until Love was recovered. He had to medically retire as a physician because in his chosen profession he needed both hands functioning. He finally knows what he wants to go back to school for and is working toward that, and I am happy to say that I just received a job offer. WAHOO! We are very happy that we have made hard but necessary changes in our life and are ready for baby now in God's time. I have a sense of peace not only over our TTC but in life in general. I feel so blessed to have my husband home, healthy, and we are both ready to finally have a baby together! It has been 23 months since Love's stroke and I have been off work since that night. I have looked for jobs, and between our move across country and back I just hadn't found anything. I hadn't found anything until this week that is. You may remember last month when I interviewed for a job and had a horrific interview experience.. if not read all about that interview from hell . Well this past Monday I had another interview for my former job that I worked until Love's stroke. I had both places call within a 24 hour period and offer me a job! SO I am no longer unemployed. In fact I have 2 jobs to choose from! WAHOO!!!! I will receive insurance benefits as of April 1st. Everything is falling into place and I couldn't be happier... ESPECIALLY if I get knocked up next Monday!

Met with Dr Awesome

Love and I met with Dr Awesome and his Sr Resident and we officially have a plan of action!
Dr Awesome had me pick up an OPK and begin testing for Ovulation since I was on Day 11 of my cycle on our meeting day and he wants me to note the date of Ovulation then call when my cycle starts so we can jump into our cycle with the knowledge of this last cycles timing. He plans to do an unmedicated cycle with 2 consecutive dIUIs once I ovulate in March. HOLY CRIKEY friends this is our time! WAHOO!

We rushed over to Le Drugstore and got our OPK  the Clear Blue Easy one...

Then rushed home to order our Donor Sperm IUI vials...DONE in record time... while on the phone with our DS Bank I asked questions about our donor... Of the vials that have been used of his so far there are 5 confirmed pregnancies and the representative said that no less than 3 of those were multiples...

Now we are in the wait before the 2WW... and this time we are in control... WELL God is in control but I know we aren't relying on another woman, whether related or not to help complete our family. I'm not saying we are never going to go through surrogacy but we will be planning that when we are completely ready to proceed, with our 3 frozen embryos...Since they need to come home to us as well. This being just Love and I with our Dr Awesome is really well AWESOME because this is a huge change. We finally feel like we are moving forward and we took what little control we could of our own family planning. This Friday (today by the time the post goes up) is my CD14 so hopefully I ovulate and this is the final countdown and we get pregnant in March!

Over the years I have ofter said that I just want to end my pregnancies with my body on a high note. I want to carry a healthy pregnancy and deliver without the stress of Rh sensitization. By Love changing his mind on the use of donor gametes he is bringing that dream into a reality for me. What a wonderful husband and life partner, and soon very very soon... what a wonderful father to our future baby.

I can not wait for Love to become Big Daddy Love...it really is the one thing we have yearned for these past 3 years.  So please hurry little turtle...mommy and Big Daddy Love really want to meet you this year!

Nope Not Crazy...

Yes folks you heard it here first!

I can totally see you aren't impressed huh...OK well I guess let me back up so I can bust in with and TADA! We aren't crazy! Maybe that will help okay here we go.


So after a couple years of our private hell rollercoaster Gestational Surrogacy being the main focus, we switched gears suddenly. Love came to me in December and said he was ready to pursue dIUI, he asked me to make an appointment with our RE, Dr Awesome here in Littlebigtown, Midwest.

Alrighty so I jump on the phone while keeping an eye on Love, for fear I was wrong about what month we were in and he was going to jump up and say APRIL FOOLS! (because this had been a heated debate before we ever even married). I scheduled our appointment and hung up the phone, then a couple days ago the Nurse from Dr Awesome's office called me. (I'm gonna just call her nurse because my mommy taught me "if you don't have anything nice to say DON'T say anything at all, Birdiegirl!" so this is me not saying ANYTHING)
So Nurse said "Hey Birdie I see you have an appointment to talk with Dr Awesome about dIUI and get started, I need you to make an appointment with Clinical Psychologist, aka Her Royal Awesome, Psy. D. to go through the evaluation to make sure both you and Love are okay to proceed. " So I quickly inform Nurse that I happen to have an appointment this Friday (today) and I will make sure it gets done in the course of our appointment. Fast forward to today... We walk in to our appointment and just had to sit and visit with Her Royal Awesome, Psy. D. so she could make sure we aren't crazy nutty peeps that think every baby on the street is their long lost baby have reasonable expectations of this cycling process. They also needed to ensure we would indeed love this baby just like it were both of our genetic baby not like a red headed step child...

errr um wait well Love has one of those too. (for the record He loves Bug just like she is his. :) and actually I'm impressed with his ability to help me understand my almost 20 year old son, Froggy... (yeah the older they are they really don't get much easier), but We do so love our Froggy, and Bug. ANYHOO-  We met for an hour taking up my therapy session (what if I really needed that time today?) with Her Royal Awesome, Psy. D. yeah that is her real name! okay maybe not, but it should be. At the end I got this fabulous "permission slip" that says briefly in like 5 sentences that yes we know what to expect, we have realistic goals, we are emotionally stable, functioning, and based on our interaction with her she recommends that we be allowed to proceed in ART, with use of donor tissues (guess that's how they say Super Awesome Sperminator).  That's right Ladies and Gents, it is official we are "ALLOWED" to get pregnant by Secret Agent Donor otherwise know as Super Awesome Sperminator... On February 15th we have our appointment to get our calendar... and order our uber special vials of magic serum so Sperminator can get to work at helping Love and I be Daddy and Mommy. And We aren't crazy... if only Fertiles and teen parents had to get the same little permission slip<------ Yeah that's a rant for another day.


TADA! We aren't crazy!
However I have to go back to  Clinical Psychologist, aka Her Royal Awesome, Psy. D. because she must have been asleep while filling it out the date on it says 02/03/2011.... UGH!

ICLW: Getting to know you...

Hello fellow ICLWers Welcome to my bloggy home! I hope you are all having a fabulous week so far. I figured I should give you the skinny on my story here at Birdie's Family Journey. Love and I went on our first date in November of 2008, engaged in April of 2009, and married in August of 2009... yes that was a whirlwind but I have to tell you not a day goes by that I don't thank God for my husband.  Plus we wanted to add to our family ASAP and we aren't spring chickens! I have 2 grown children from my first marriage. Froggy almost20 and Bug who just turned 18. If you want a breakdown of why I can't carry my DH's baby go here. We started our journey to baby via surrogacy during that fall, and were matched to a wonderful surrogate, who had to back out due to a home electrical fire right before our appointment for psych evals, and cycling. We were so very sad but understood that she needed to focus on her home and family. We went through a few potential matches including a family member match. We were all set to to on our journey and prepping for a June cycle when my dear hubby had a stroke due to unregulated hypertension April 30, 2010. Life changed in an instant, One month before his 37th birthday my hubby was suddenly in a fight for his life. At that instant we went from a dual income family to a no income family, and luckily we had money saved, and the ability to fall back and regroup. I had changed jobs right after we married and didn't have FMLA time allowed so not only did Love's private practice end my job did as well, while my husband was in surgical ICU and in a coma I was told by my workplace.

I spent the next year being Love's personal cheerleader and after almost 4 months in the hospital he was able to come home to a newly renovated place (had to be done for him to come home)... and we continued with on average 9-11 appointments each week for the first few months then it backed down to around 6 appointments each week and tapered off until last July when he stopped all outside therapies. He no longer practices and is medically retired, his Bp is now under control and he is feeling like its time to restart our journey in a new way. We know we still want to pursue surrogacy in the future because we have 3 frozen embryos that are great quality. We do however want to have more than 1 child so they have a sibling.  We have an appointment on February 15th to start a dIUI cycle. I look forward to sharing our journey with you all and please leave a comment, follow me, and I will for sure be following you ladies and gents back!

A.R.T. and Our Faith

So Love and I went to Church today, he actually attended service (not that that is rare...its a lifestyle for us.) and I was in a meeting with one of our Senior Pastors. We were married by her and she has been through everything with us, our pre-marriage counseling, and as my husband recovered from his stroke, through our failed surrogacy tries, and now as we take this next step toward completing our family. Now I know there is a HUGE debate in the "Christian" community regarding A.R.T. and donor gametes, as well as surrogacy, but I have to tell you... In my church home there has never been anything but open arms, love and acceptance.

So Pastor Lady and I sit down, and she starts off by saying so how are things going on the surrogacy front? We were meeting for many reasons, but her first thought for me is "Birdie, when are you gonna have your baby?" (did I mention I love this woman!) She in my mind is so much more than just 1/2 of our Senior Pastor team. She is like our very own cheerleader, or a replacement mom, as my mother passed away 8 years ago. It humbles me so much to know she is right there in the trenches rooting for us...but I digress. I say well hold on I have to tell you a few things first then I will tell you about surrogacy. So I blurt out everything Love and I have gone through since our return to Littlebigtown Midwest, and she assures me that we made a good decision regarding family,. We talk about Froggy and how concerned I was over him last semester, and I tell her what a rockstar he is being in school now and he is communicating well with his father and I. (YAY Froggy!). Then I turn the conversation to Donor IUI (which we talked over briefly during our pre-marriage counseling along with the other options open to us... Adoption and Surrogacy) and Love's change of heart regarding it. I share with her that he is ready to take this step to have a child because of a few reasons:

1. our age 
2. financial concerns
3. we want to have a 2nd child and know in a couple years our finances would be in line with a surrogacy try. (For now however we just can't swing two surrogacy journeys, and by the time we could we wouldn't be able to use my eggs due to age). 
4. Love prayed about it over the past couple years. His heart has been softened by hearing and reading other Christians stories of Family Faith and Infertility. 

I talked fast, almost like I felt I needed to plead our case then turned to her and said, so now I have to ask..."Is the Church okay with our following this avenue to start our family?" She smiled and covered my hand as Pastor Lady said this, "The Church doesn't take a formal stance on this subject. The leadership feels that this is a decision that a husband and wife must make on their own after prayerful consideration. We feel that this is between you and God. We are completely supportive either way." Have I mentioned how much I love my Church lately? Because I do, I really, really do!

We left church today feeling completely at ease with our decision, and that our Church family will be open, welcoming, loving and nurturing to our child however he or she comes into existence. AND that folks, is the definition of being a Christian. Love like Christ.

Next appointment for baby making is February 15th! Did I mention that our RE is also the coolest Christian doctor I know? When I was scared before retrieval December of 2010, he totally prayed over me...I have to say Love and I have the best support system here in Littlebigtown, Midwest.

OH yeah and Pastor Lady said a while back there was a lady at our church that emailed and asked what the Church's view on Surrogacy was, because she really felt led to become a surrogate...WOW small world, still doesn't change the fact that we are just not able to swing surrogacy fees right now. BUT  the Church Leadership is being supportive toward A.R.T. and that soothes my soul.