It's all happening!

It's all happening!!!

Sooo, I started my cycle on Sunday and went to the clinic the next day for an ultrasound to make sure I was ready to go!  My follicles and ovaries looked perfect....Dr. Massey said my insides look like a 32 year old's.  (hey, at least my insides can look young, because the outside?  not so much).  Anyway, so they gave me the green light to start taking the meds.  As you can see from the photo, there's A LOT to take.  I take Lupron, multivitamin and baby aspirin in the morning, and Menopur, Gonal F and a steroid at night.  The Lupron has given me the absolute WORST headaches that turn into migraines because I can't take any blood thinners.  I had to leave work the other day because I was puking.  In fact, I puked in someone's front yard.....Merry Christmas!  Other than that, I feel ok.  Just staying cautiously hopeful!  I go to the clinic again on Friday for another ultrasound to make sure the meds are doing what they should be doing and get further instructions. It's looking like a mid December procedure.....please, please cross your fingers and toes.  I can't tell you how wonderful the clinic staff is....so positive and loving towards Dan and me.  We love you all and hope you are having a happy holiday season.  I can't wait to see everyone's holiday cards with the kiddos......here's to hoping we will have one next year to send out!  xoxo

Update

We are moving forward with IVF at the Servy Massey Institute and the protocol officially starts on November 20.  At that time, they will probably do an ultrasound to make sure my uterus looks healthy and give me the fertility drugs that will have to be injected daily. I'm not looking forward to that part at all.  I'm taking something now to optimize my ovarian function and it is seriously painful when I ovulate.  Taking several pills a day is now my new normal.
So after that visit, I wait to get my period, and then on day 2 or 3, I start taking the fertility meds that will prepare my body and force me to overproduce eggs.  Sometime mid-December, Dan and I will head down to Augusta GA for the egg retrieval and transfer.  I have taken two weeks off of work so I won't be stressed and we have the week off after Christmas so it should be a super relaxing time.  I'm not getting ahead of myself or hoping too hard.  I tell people my feeling on everything is "cautiously hopeful".  As I type this, I flash back to that day when I woke up at 5am and realized I had my period and the IVF did not work.  I must not let myself go there.  At least all this is occurring during the holidays so I hope to have plenty of distractions.  Please invite me to your holiday party :)
I will post more when I know more!  xoxo

Finally some GOOD news!

Dan had his 9 month follow up with Dr Witt yesterday.  At these appointments, they take a "sample" from him and analyze it while we wait.  And lo and behold.....he finally has swimmers!  His last visit he was at 50,000 (or 11%) and now he's at 500,000 (or 27%).  Not only that, but the doctor said he shows enough there that we can do IVF without having to include the TESE....or sperm extraction procedure.  This would have cost anywhere from 5-8k extra.  So we are counting this a a huge win and moving forward with IVF at the Servy Massey Institute.  Hopefully we can get it done in November or December of this year.  Wouldn't it be the greatest gift ever for ourselves???  Thanks for all the prayers, good vibes and energy.  I can't tell you how great it felt to leave that place yesterday with a smile on my face.....a first!  And that's saying a lot considering we both have the flu :))  xoxo

Joe Massey

I've been feeling really impatient lately...sitting around waiting for the next doctor appointment that gives us the latest on Dan's recovery has been the highlight of my summer.  And now that fall is here, I see this as a chance for a new approach.  While being treated at RBA, I had heard that one of the founding doctors at that practice had been a guy named Joe Massey.  Come to find out that my family knows him as his family used to live in our neighborhood back in the 70's and early 80's.  I decided to google him and found out he started his own practice called the Servy Massey Institute.  www.ivfga.com.  Dr Massey has an office here in Atlanta and his partner, Dr Servy is based in Augusta.  They came together to offer a more affordable treatment to people that cannot afford the 15-18k price tag at clinics in Atlanta.  Dr Massey does all the preliminary testing here in Atlanta, and sends patients to Augusta for egg retrieval and egg transfers.  So I set up and appointment and Dan and I met with him last week.  His treatment protocol costs $6975 plus 2-3k for fertility drugs.  That's half the cost of RBA.  He immediately put me on DHEA which is supposed to improve egg quality and performed an SIS (injects saline into my uterus) to make sure no polyps have grown back.  The great news is that I look healthy and ready for IVF.  Of course, there are some obstacles in the way....I spoke to the clinic in the Czech Republic and they are unable to ship Dan's frozen sperm to the U.S. due to customs restrictions.  SO, that means one of two things....we either have to pay for another TESE (sperm extraction) which costs between 5-8k or we have to pray, pray, pray that Dan's counts have increased at  his next checkup on 10/15 and we can use his live sperm.  It's hard with all the ups and downs of this journey and our options change by the hour.  But this is a new GREAT option and we hope this is our chance.  Please pray for us that Dan's next visit shows such improvement that we won't have to do the TESE, because we cannot afford to do that along with paying for the IVF.  As always, we can't make it through this without the love and support of our family and friends.  Love and prayers to everyone!

What is wrong with the world??

The past couple weeks have been about us getting our finances figured out, determining what loan will work for us and then CRASH.....Dan's company fires nearly all their Atlanta employees.  So now he's out of a job.  I mean, come on?  Is this a joke?  Why are we always getting bad news???  Somebody throw us a bone!!
Dan has a follow up (his third) since the surgery 7 months ago.  Of course, we are hopeful but that hasn't exactly served us well in the past.  I will post more once we hear from the doctors.  Pray!!!!!!!!

Boo.  The loan company wanted to make us pay a $1200 SERVICE CHARGE to move forward with the loan.  Funny, you have to pay to get a loan????  Unbelievable.  Back to the drawing board.  UGH

New Hope

Gosh, it's been a frustrating couple months. I have never felt so helpless. Dan has had two follow up visits since his surgery and they still have seen no change.  His type of surgery is a slow healing one.  The doctor has him on a steroid now to reduce inflammation in hopes of healing faster.  But there's still no telling when and if we can conceive naturally.  What can we do now???
But there's still hope.....a medical financing company I applied to several months ago contacted me.  They agree to give us a 10k loan!  We haven't qualified before because my debt was still so high since we paid for our wedding ourselves.Until now, I wasn't able to even get a credit card with a decent APR.  I called RBA to get the quote on my treatment and it's going to be around 15k.  So if we can come up with 5k in 60 days, we can do IVF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Here in the good ole USA. 
Keep the prayers coming that we can make this happen.  I feel hopeful for the first time in a long time!