A Renewed Hope

Sorry that I am just now posting about this....

We went to our adoption information meeting on Saturday and we loved everything about this agency! It just so happens that they have a training program coming up this weekend(Friday and Saturday). So, we signed up and are getting everything started! They gave us all of the paperwork last Saturday and we have been working on it all week. We have to each answer some questions, do an autobiography, fill out some more paperwork, get fingerprinted, get BMV reports, background checks, get physicals, get proof of employment, have 3 letters of recommendation, and much more. But the great thing is we have all most all of this done except the physicals and we are getting those next week. Once all of this stuff is turned in, we can schedule our home visit. And after we get our Dear Birthmother letter done and the homestudy is done, we will be "in the books"...just waiting on a mom to pick us! We are sooooo excited!!! I can't wait to get all of this stuff done and just be waiting for our Match! God has just given us so much Hope and we are so excited that He is taking us on this journey to become a family!

Adoption Meetings

I am so excited!! We were on a waiting list for an informational meeting at IAC(adoption agency) on December 5th(this saturday) and got a call today that they have a spot for us!! We weren't supposed to be able to go until the January 9th meeting. I was getting a little down because I just really wanted to get started, so I am excited to see if this is who we want to go with. We are also going to a meeting tomorrow night with a different agency to check out their program. I also faxed an intake form to another agency and haven't heard anything from them(maybe that's our sign that they aren't the ones for us.) It is so hard to know who to go with. I still feel the most pull towards the one that we get to meet with on Saturday, though. Just thought I would post a little update. There hasn't really been anything to update lately. We are just "patiently" waiting to get the ball rolling.

Black Friday

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Check it out!!

God has changed our hearts....

And we couldn't be more excited!!!

We have been preparing for our IVF for January for the last few months and it was starting to get closer and closer. People were asking me about it and I was noticing that I was feeling sort of indifferent about it. I was like, "God why do I feel this way? I feel like I should be getting excited." But I just kept having this feeling of nothing really. Not excitement. Not anything. I kept thinking well maybe I am just scared....scared of more disappointment. So I just went on and thought I will get more excited as it gets a little closer.

Then all of this stuff started happening. I didn't realize this "stuff" was happening until I look back now. One day I came across this blog, My Heart's Cry. I started reading it and it was an amazing couples journey through infertility and their eventual road to adoption(I read the whole thing...3.5 hours worth;)). I didn't know it then but that is one of the first things God used to show me where He was going to be taking us soon.

Our good friends just adopted a little girl and they were over a couple weeks ago. My friend, Betsy, said to me, "if you guys ever decide you want to adopt, you should use the agency we used to do our homestudy. We really liked them and they are one of the most affordable in Indy." That night when they left I got on the website and I was thinking, "why am I on here? We are getting ready to do IVF. Oh well I think I'll just order an info packet, just for fun." That was on a Saturday night. On Tuesday I found myself excitedly anticipating that packet. I was so confused by my feelings. Little did I know that God was changing my heart at that very moment. On Tuesday the packet came and I read every last thing in that packet and when I was done, I knew God was revealing a new plan to us! We were supposed to pursue adoption instead of this upcoming IVF. I knew that Rob wasn't really on this same page yet, so I started praying that God would change Rob's heart if this was His plan for us. After lots of talking and praying, Rob told me last night that he was ready to pursue adoption! Wow things can change so much, so fast, but we are so excited!! We can't get into the first info meeting until January 9th, because the December one is full, so we still have some waiting to do before we can really start anything. But we will be moving forward with Domestic Adoption as soon as we can get started! We can't wait! We would love it if you would start praying with us for the Birthmom and our baby and God's plan for all of us!

Dear God, can we please have one of these?

Is she not one of the most perfect little babies you have ever seen?

This is our good friends' newest baby girl! She is just so precious and beautiful!! Her name is Eliana, it is Hebrew for "God has answered". It is the perfect name for her!!

Me getting some cuddle time in...

Do we not look like naturals??? :)

"I love you uncle Rob!;)"

Eliana and her big sister Noura!

So adorable

A very good big sister! She is the sweetest little 2 1/2 year old! and she loves her aunt yindsey and unka wob! ;)

Well we are down to less than two months until our 2nd IVF. I have mixed emotions about it. I am so ready for it to get here but so scared of more disappointment. I have changed the way I pray about it. God knows my heart. He knows what I desire. He gave me this heart! So I like to talk to Him about how excited I get when I think about being a mom and just to share with Him like I would any of my close friends about my desires, dreams and fears. And I just pray for Him to prepare our hearts for His plans and to lead us in another direction if we are not on the path He has for us. I like to go in the room in our new house that we picked to be the nursery and just pray for our future child/children. It is so exciting to be in there and dream of it one day actually being an nursery and sitting in there rocking our little baby. Maybe one day very soon this dream will come true. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what God has in store for us! :)

Only 3 months!

According to the ticker we only have 3 more months until we can do our 2nd IVF!!! I can't wait to be a mommy! I want this to work sooo bad!! I want to watch my belly grow and feel our baby move and see who our baby looks like and all of that great fun stuff!

And only 2 more weeks until we move into our new house!! We went to "visit" it tonight...here are a couple of pics!

We layed by the fireplace for awhile...this is the first time it has worked when we've been there!

Our new kitchen!

Our new house!

Congrats Mr. and Mrs. Allen!!!

My little sister/BFF, Jenny, got married last weekend!! It was a perfect wedding! The weather was perfect and everything went great!! I am a little sad that it is over but so happy for the beautiful couple! I love you Jenny(and Kevin)!:)

KJ

The awesome cake!

Me and my mar mar!

The groom...ready to go!

Beautiful Bride

Rob and I with our good friends!

My brother, Zach, with his daughter Maura

Dad, Gma Helen and Maura

Sistas! Audrey and Maura

My cute parents dancin' it up!

Game time chest bump;)

Me and My BFF

Jenny and Audrey

Love this pic of Maura and Audrey

Ma and Pa with the bride

Mother/daughter

some of my fav kiddos(nieces and nephews)!! Maura, Will, Noah and Audrey

To my husband...

Today Rob and I have been married for 3 years! Wow I can't believe it has been that long! Rob, you are the best husband any girl could hope for! You are so caring and loving and always picking me up when I'm down. You are so encouraging and such a man of God. Infertility SUCKS;), but it has brought us even closer together and you have proved to me that you are the awesome husband I thought you were! I love you more everyday! And I can't wait to see you in the "daddy" role! I know you will be just as awesome at that!!! I love you, baby!

August 26, 2006

My Favorite Scripture right now....

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." 1 Peter 1:6-7

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

Today

Well today was a good day overall. I got to see "my Mary"! She's one of my fav's! And I got to see my favorite Dr. in the whole wide world! We had our post IVF consult today. Dr J. was frustrated because he said my cycle was perfect. He said my chart was in the "pregnant" pile. I was one that he KNEW would be pregnant. He said as far as the embryos go, mine were great. He said it's hard to tell about the 4 cell....it could've went either way but the 7 and 8 cell were really good embryos. He said the most important thing in the IVF process is embryo quality and I had that. I love how caring he is. He is just amazing!! He just said so many things that made us know that he cares about us and our dreams of having a family. Basically the conclusion we came to is that we just need to try again. He said the reason he only got 5 good eggs was because he knew he only needed 3 so when they told him they had 5 good ones he stopped "retrieving". He said there was no reason to keep sticking me. So basically our plan is to go for IVF#2 in January. And we told him after this cycle we had a different outlook on freezing and that we would probably freeze with our next cycle. He was like a kid at Christmas when we said that. He said he would have no trouble getting 10-12 good eggs next time and that he would culture them out to the blast stage and transfer the two best ones and we would freeze the rest. He said we would probably have 4-6 to freeze at the most and he transfers 3 with a frozen transfer usually because the success rates are a lot lower than with a fresh cycle. So we felt really positive about all of that. We also brought up my endometriosis because by January it will have been a year since my surgery. He wanted to be safe and keep it from coming back before our next IVF so he put me on birth control for the next 5 months. We felt good about that too. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. We are doing really good most days but some days are really hard. And just pray that God continues to show us His will for us! Thanks!

Please Pray for my Friend!

I know I have so many prayer warriors out there, so I was hoping that I could recruit you guys. Her name is Pam. She just beat breast cancer a couple months ago. Now she found out today after having back pain and getting a CT scan done that the cancer seems to have metastasized. She has a caringbridge site if you would like to read her story. She is a person with such a strong faith and has been such an inspiration to me over the past 8 years that I've known her. Her site is http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/pamschoonveld. Thanks!

The Best Dr.

I have one of the best Dr.'s ever! I am so thankful for him. He is not only a very intelligent man, he is so genuine and sweet! He seems to know his patients and what they need. He knows that I always have lots of questions and can be very emotional(I am sure that I'm not the only patient like this:)). The first time after he mentioned IVF to us I just had so many questions. We had met with him on a Saturday and by Monday I had lots of questions and called to make an appt. I got extra blessed because they had a cancellation that day and we got in to see him that Monday. I told him that I had read through his big IVF manual twice over the weekend and had some questions. He just gave me his little smile that he does and said "that doesn't surprise me that you read through that twice already(this manual is big!)." But anyway we got to talk more about IVF, get lots of questions answered and when we went to pay, the receptionist said, "oh he isn't charging you for today. Go out and have dinner with that money." That is just the kind of guy he is!! But anyway he called me today and left me a message and it just made me want to cry. He said, "Lindsey this is Dr. J. I just wanted to tell you I am so sorry that this didn't work. I hope you are doing ok. Now don't get too down. We're down but not out! We've got things we can do. Hang in there and I'll see you next week." Isn't he awesome! We have our post IVF consult next Thursday so I am excited to see what he has to say. As of now, our plans(we know that these are ours and may not be Gods, so I use that word kind of cautiously) are to use our flex spending account for next year and take out enough for an IVF cycle. At least that way it is taken out of our pay checks over the whole year and it is before taxes so that saves a little bit of money. So if we do that, we can do our second cycle in January. It kinda stinks that we have to wait, because we are ready to go again ASAP;). But that's just life and we'll try to just enjoy the break I guess. And we also haven't heard Dr. J's opinion on our first cycle but i have a feeling he is going to say, we just need to try again!

I just want to thank everyone again for all of the messages and prayers throughout this journey. I am getting messages from friends of friends and people I didn't even know read my blog! It just means so much to me. I love to be vulnerable and open and I don't care who reads this, but I just didn't realize that so many people were. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Your words and prayers mean so much to us!

Thankful Thursday

I'm thankful that I can still believe in His faithfulness

A Hard Day

Wordless Wednesday

Life's Not Fair, but God is Good

I won't get the official news until tomorrow, but we aren't pregnant. I took my first test 9dp3dt(I also took one 10dp3dt and 11dp3dt). I took the most sensitive test(first response...the one that gave me a false positive back in December the morning my beta was 12). I knew then that it was over. It was pretty sad. I laid in bed and held the picture of our babies and cried and Rob came into the room and crawled in bed with me and said, "you took a test?". I said yes. We just laid there for a long time. At that moment, as sad as I was, I trusted God's plans more than I ever have. I can't explain that except that God is working in our lives through all of this pain. It doesn't take away the sadness, but it makes the hope stronger.

I thought the title of this post was fitting since this was Norm's quote(our great family friend, who passed away April 1st of this year) and tomorrow would have been her birthday(the day we get the official news). This news doesn't change who God is. Believe me I could go on and on about people that keep having babies and don't have custody of any of them or people who beat their kids to death and I DO ask God about that...why do you keep giving them babies? That's not fair! But God reminds me that He is Good and has great plans for our lives and just to trust him. So I think I'll focus on that instead. God knew the outcome of this IVF cycle long ago and no matter how shaken I am by this, He's not shaken!(one of my favorite songs right now by Phil Stacy-You're not shaken)

my fav part of that song....

"I am trembling in the darkness of my own fear
All the questions with no answers
So grip me while I’m here
And I may never know why
Oh I may not understand
But I will lift up my eyes,
and trust this is Your plan"

/Chorus/
When every little thing that I dream of being just slips away like water through my hands
And when it seems the walls from my beliefs come crashing down like they’re all made of sand
I won’t, let go of You now
because I know, oh, You’re not shaken

Thanks for all of your prayers throughout the process of IVF cycle#1. Yes I said #1...we might actually try this again, although right now I think we will just take a break. We have to for financial reasons anyway. Please continue to pray for God to show us His plans. He might have plans for us to adopt or try this again or even something else to bring us our baby.

What is happening for the next few days...hopefully

5dpt.. Implantation begins,as the blastocyst begins to bury in the lining

6dpt.. Implantation process continues and morula buries deeper in the lining

7dpt.. Morula is completely implanted in the lining and has placenta cells &
fetal cells

Well I am a little bummed today. I am just not feeling it. I know I'll be ok if it doesn't work but it will suck too. Please keep praying that our little ones will make their homes in there for the next 9 months. I probably won't update the blog anymore for a couple of weeks. I think I am just going to take a break. The encouragement from everyone is so appreciated and it helps so much but I think I would be better off staying away from some of the other blogs I find and the Internet too. Your encouragement and prayers mean so much to me. Thank you so so so much! We don't want to share our testing date because if it would be positive we want to share that with our families first and if it is negative we just want some time to deal with that alone I think. Love you all!

Jeremiah 29:11 (New International Version)

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

4dp3dt-Calling all you prayer warriors!

So what should be going on in there today???.......

4dpt.. Blastocyst attaches to a site on the uterine lining

ATTACH MY LIL LUVBUGS!!!!!

Hatch little chickies Hatch!

On day 3 after a 3 day transfer(3dp3dt-3days past 3day transfer) the blastocysts should be hatching out of the outer shell. My shell was thick according to the embryologist so they did what is called assisted hatching where they make a small hole in the outer layer to help with the hatching process. Please pray for our little ones to be able to hatch out of their shells today!!! Go little chickies Go! You can do it!!

Here's a pic of the assisted hatching procedure. The tool on the left is just to hold the embryo. The needle on the right is making a small hole in the outer shell.

Survival

Ok, I need some tips on how to survive the wait to find out if this IVF cycle worked. I have been doing pretty well, but I am starting to feel a little crazy already!! Anyone have any advice??

Transfer Complete

We transferred a...

4 cell(it's a little behind)

7 cell (grade 2+)

8 cell (grade 4)

They are graded on a scale of 0-4 with 4 being the best.

Here are our sweet babies

The little white dot is them being put into my uterus(their home:))

Please pray that they latch on and make themselves at home!

Thanks for all of the prayers!

Update

First of all thanks so much for the prayers and all of the comments on my last post! This is so exciting and feels so awesome to have so much support and encouragement! I just wanted to let everyone know our ET is Friday morning at 6:45!! Early but that's OK! I can't wait to see how my babies are doing!!

Petrie, Ducky and Spike

Our friend, Andrew, told us the other day that if we get pregnant and have a boy, he thinks we should name him petri(like petri dish). So then I thought of Petrie from the land before time and I was like, we definitely need to name our embryos. So we officially have 3 embryos!! Our little babies! I am in love already!!! Petrie, Ducky and Spike(all land before time characters)! Thank you so much for your prayers!!! PTL!!! I was crying and jumping up and down!! My sister got to witness it all!!! She said she wishes she would've videoed it for Rob!..LOL! Dr. S, the embryologist said that the nurses will call me this afternoon to set up my transfer for friday! We are doing a 3 day transfer! They won't look at the little ones tomorrow but will look at them before the transfer on Friday and let us know how they look!! Oh I am flying high right now!! Now we'll just wait and see if they divide and grow like they should and of course PRAY! Thank you God! I am so excited!!!

Egg Retrieval

The ER went well today. I was so nervous while we were waiting. They were so busy it was like an assembly line for ER today. At about 8:30, Dr. J(best Dr. in the world) came and got me and wheeled me back to the OR. When we got there, he was like, "ok let's get this done right this time." I just love him! I also had a nurse that I used to work with at Riley as one of my nurses. She was really sweet and as her and Dr. J where putting my legs up into the stirrups, I was luckily drifting off to sleep. So I didn't have too much time to think about the fact that someone from work was all down in my business;). For all of you Riley girls reading this, it was Stacey M. from Mod 6. Thank you everyone for your encouraging words over the last few days and all of the prayers that were being said for us this morning. We appreciate it so much...and now we just wait for the fertilization report in the AM. I am pretty sleepy so hopefully I'll sleep the day away so it will go by fast!!. Oh yeah...Dr. J gave Rob a thumbs up, when he brought me back to my recovery room(i was still out of it) and said that he got 5 good eggs and seemed to be happy with that. We are too! Keep praying that our little eggs and spermies turn into embies...healthy embies! :) Thanks!

Us "patiently" waiting for our turn:)

Me a little out of it(or a lot.lol.wow!)...saying we got 5!!

Retrieval Eve

So I should be in bed right now since I need to get up at about 5:00am, but I am just so anxious/excited. I have been reading this book the last couple days that my SIL just sent me in the mail. The name of it is "The Red Sea Rules"-10 God given strategies for difficult times. I haven't gotten very far into it yet but I am loving it and it is just what I need. Especially during these next couple of weeks. The two things that have really helped me so far are, "The same God who led you in will lead you out"....and Red Sea Rule #1, "Realize that God means for you to be where you are." I guess these things have given me so much comfort over the last couple of days because I know that God has my best interests in mind and that He has a perfect plan for our lives. So the fact that He has brought us here means that there is a reason for it(He means for us to be here), and He will eventually lead us out. I don't know if this will be it, but it could be it and I still don't know what His perfect plans are but I am choosing to trust in His plans for our lives. I hope beyond all hope that this is it, but if it's not, I will be OK.

God, I am so excited about tomorrow. I want to believe that this will be it, but I also know that i don't want something that isn't in your timing. I am going to continue to hope that we will be blessed with a baby from this IVF cycle. But if we aren't, I know that we will be ok because of who you are and your perfect plans for our lives. I just pray that our little eggs will be mature and that fertilization will occur. Please give us peace and help us find our strength in you throughout this process. In Jesus name, Amen

Trigger Time

Today we had a day of celebrating toddler birthdays! It was lots of fun! Katie is turning 3 and had a Little Mermaid party! And Noura turned 2 on Saturday and celebrated with a Mickey Mouse theme!!

Katie pausing to pose for a pic

Noura checking out the water before the party began

Noura thoroughly enjoying her bday party!

Well Rob just gave me my last injections of the cycle. It is so exciting and stressful all at the same time! I am just ready for Tuesday to be here...actually I am ready for Wednesday so we can find out the fertilization report!

Another Follicle Update

So I went in for another US this morning. Everything looked good. I think I had 9 or 10 follicles with only a few not quite big enough. The nurse called me this afternoon and said that Dr. J wants me to take my Bravelle and Menopur one more time in the morning and then tomorrow night at 8pm I will trigger. Monday I have pre-op labs and an appt. and then Tuesday morning at 8am will be our retrieval!! This is so exciting! Rob gave me my last dose of Lupron tonight. He likes to be involved in this process as much as he can so he gives me my lupron at night and then he usually is still in bed when I do the shots in the mornings, so I do those. I'll leave you with a pic of me getting my last lupron shot!!! This is so exciting!!

Follicles

Well I went in for my second ultrasound today and I have 7 follicles that are either ready or close to ready to be "retrieved"! Dr. J wants me to take one more day of meds, come in for another ultrasound in the morning and then I will probably trigger tomorrow night and go in for ER on Monday! Wow this is going so fast! I am mostly staying positive and am excited to see what next week brings. I have a specific prayer request that might sound silly but it is really important to me. There is a "disclaimer" on our paperwork that says it could be either Dr. J or his partner Dr. M who does the ER and ET, so please pray that Dr. J will do ours. I know there are a lot of IVF cycles going on right now in his office and I so want him to be the one to do it. I just know him and really like him and he has been the one that has been through all of this with us. So please pray for that and that my follicles would continue to do what they need to do and that Dr. J will get the 3 mature eggs that we need!

Thankfulness

I just want to thank everyone that sent me words of encouragement yesterday! It means so much to me and helps me a lot! I had someone at work pretty much making fun of me yesterday. She was saying, "you don't even know those people on those blogs, but you act like they're your friends." I was so hurt by that! You are all friends to me! It is so awesome to have people going through the same things! We are able to encourage each other and it means so much to me. Even though we haven't ever met in person, I feel like we have such a special bond because of the infertility journey we share! Thanks so much to all my blogger friends!!!...and of course to all of my friends(that i have met in person;)) that read my blog! You are all so special to me!

I am scared

I am having a rough time today. I was doing so well and feeling so positive and then last night I was jumping from blog to blog reading about different IVF stories and I just got so scared about this not working. I started reading about 3day transfers vs 5day transfers and wondering what ours will be and if our embryos will thrive for those 3-5 days or will they not make it?!? Will this work and I will get to be a mommy or will it not and we will have to wait another year to try again??...I am so scared and I know fear is not from God, so I just keep praying for peace but i just can't shake it. I want to relax and stay positive. Anyone have any advice or special verses that helped you get through this time or if you haven't gone through this just any special verses that you think might help. I need something that I can cling to, because I can tell this is going to be a long month...I just want to stay positive and trust God for His plans. Please pray for this for me! Thanks!

Let's get this thing started!!

My meds for the next 6 days!!!

Since it's Thursday I thought I would do a little "Thankful Thursday" post...

I am thankful for...

Jesus

My Husband

My Family

Infertility(don't get me wrong...I am ready for it to be over, but it has refined me so much in the last two years and as painful as that can be, it is a great thing!)

True Friends

My meds arriving today:)

My wonderful Dr., Dr. J

Mary

My Job

Mug Root Beer and....

Sushi

These are just a few of the wonderful blessings in my life!

Moving on down...to the south side

Rob working on packing up the kitchen

Just a few of our things boxed up and ready to be moved

Wow! This month has been flying by! I can't believe that we are almost into July! We are closing on our house on June 29th, so we are moving into an apt this weekend. We have been so busy packing up and finalizing plans on our house that we are building. It seems like everything always happens at once!! So anyway we weren't really planning on any of this just two months ago, but decided to put our house up for sale and just see what happened. It sold in one day and then we decided to build a house since the interest rates are at a record low! This will be our house we will live in for a really long time. It is really exciting! We should be moving in by mid October. Until then it is apt living for us! I am kinda excited about just having a few months with less cleaning and no yardwork. I will enjoy just taking it easy the rest of the summer!...and hoping for some little embies to latch on and hold on for the long haul;)!!

Speaking of little embies....I had my first appt yesterday at Dr. J's office. I mainly just got some labs drawn and got some injection instructions. I am almost finished up with 3 weeks of birth control. I am going to be taking my last BCP on June 23rd and starting Lupron this Friday(June 19th). Then I have my "start cycle" appt on June 30th and will know more then. I most likely will start stimming on July 3rd and we are still looking at a mid July ER/ET. I haven't had lots of time to sit around and think about this because of all of the house stuff, which has been good for me. I am trying to just stay positive and take it one day at a time. :)