Uncertainty. Decisions. Let's do this.

So last post, I gave the overview of our journey with infertility and where we stood.  We left on the note that Brian and I would be waiting a year to go through with the IVF cycle in Greece due to my recent diagnosis with shingles.  We were as okay with that decision as we could be.  To explain recent events...we have to go back in time a bit.  

When I first got my diagnosis with shingles, I emailed our main contact here (the nurse practitioner in our doctors office - named Brandi) and our contact in Greece (Ruth).  I received an email back from Ruth saying that I should be fine to continue on with IVF - yay!  Good news.  I received an automatic reply from Brandi that she was on vacation...for the next two weeks. Bah!  Because we like to cover all of our bases, I called the doctors office here and talked to the other nurse practitioner named Karen.  She wasn't sure about how shingles would effect IVF and so she wanted to talk to others in the office.  They didn't know either.  She talked to the embryologist and he is the one who said MAYBE the shingles could negatively effect the IVF cycle.  His reasoning was that the virus that causes it is in the chicken pox family and if a woman gets chicken pox in their first trimester, the chances of birth defects increases.  Since I have shingles, I could potentially expose the new embryo to the virus and it could have negative effects. 

So since one person said that it could be dangerous - we decided to postpone for a year.  

We are dealing with our decision, we let Ruth/Greece know we aren't coming and its obviously not a good day for us.  I write the previous blog post to help process everything and I feel pretty content that we made the right decision - its just too risky.

Five days after my original blog post.  

Brandi (remember the nurse practitioner from our doctor's office here) is back from vacation and she sees my original email and replies that it should be fine.  Shingles should have no effect. 

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.  

So. 

Many. 

Mixed. 

Opinions. 

So of course my mind starts working.  I start doing more research.  I again, can't find any that connects shingles and IVF.  I read about shingles.  A lot.  I probably know more about shingles than I ever wanted or needed to know.  Its remnants from the chickenpox virus that I got when I was younger that stayed in my nerve endings and then gets reactivated...normally by stress.  Go figure.  Stress.  Psh.  I'm the least stressed out person alive. :)  So once its reactivated, it stays along a single nerve line and produces a rash with sores that are incredibly painful.  Mine happened to be on my right side extending from my spine to my underarm.  

At this point, most of the people we talk to and the research we find says that shingles don't effect the reproductive organs and it shouldn't be an issue since mine didn't spread past my one nerve line.  Only one doctor has said that MAYBE it could have an effect but there is no research supporting it.  

So Brian and I talk.  We go over the maybes, the what ifs, all the uncertainty.  We try and make a decision - but all of our decisions are normally fact based.  There are no facts to go off of here.  We are worried we are just hearing what we want to hear and not what is right.  But in this scenario - is there a right?  Without the ability to look into the future, how do you know?  *if any of you have some magic crystal ball you'd like to share...now would be the time to point that out to us* :) 

So we have three major questions in our mind.  

1.  What if we go, it works and the baby is perfectly healthy? <---obviously the scenario we want!

2.  What if we go, it doesn't work....was it the shingles or was it really never going to work? 

3.  What if we go, it works, but something happens to the baby?  Would we ever forgive ourselves for being impatient? 

Question 3 is really the hardest to swallow.  What if something happens?  But...science me is thinking the birth defect rate for the chicken pox/1st trimester connection is only 1-2%.  That's really not much.  At all.  Its more than 0%...but still.  

All of this uncertainty and decisions are hard to process. So we contact Ruth (the nurse from Greece) and ask her to talk to the doctors/embryologists there.  They think we should be perfectly fine - no issues.  Okay...remember when we said that none of Brian's sperm were moving last time?? What if that happens again...she replied that again, its no problem.  There are ways around that.  *disclaimer - we don't know for sure what it is, we are still waiting on the test results*

Back and forth. 

What do we do?

Uncertainty.

Lots of questions.

No right answer. 

Time to make a decision.  

Let's do this.  

So - we decide - let's do this.  

There will always be risk.  The majority of doctors (minus one) says that shingles should have no issue.  Is one person's MAYBE worth waiting another whole year??  What if shingles reoccurs next year?? Right now, the timing just feels right to us.  We think this is the right decision for us and we are going to go for it.  

So....

Flights are booked. 

We will be staying with Ruth (the nurse).

Protocol is made. 

Timeline is set.  

We have a house sitter/dog sitter.  

We will be in Greece from July 18th - August 5th.  And if all goes well and it's meant to be - we will come home pregnant!  

We know there is risk.  But there is always risk.  Please keep us in your thoughts, prayers, juju, good vibes or anything else positive! We will keep you updated!  

Our Journey With Infertility

To say its been a while since I've posted would be and understatement.  This last year has been a whirlwind of being crazy, busy all the time.

In our Christmas letter, we mentioned that we have been trying to start our family for a while now but I didn't do much expanding past that.  Close friends and family know more of the process we have been through, but infertility is not an easy topic to just bring up and talk about in normal day to day conversation.

Personally, I process things though talking about them. I will happily tell the same stories of events of my day to Brian and my Mom because it helps me reflect and decide what the next steps I will need to take.  I share successes, failures, oops moments and just brainstorm in general.

So this blog will serve a multitude of purposes.

1. I need to write out my thoughts, I couldn't sleep last night because I keep running scenarios over and over in my head and I need to get them out.  
2. To catch people up on what we have been going through.  You might know we have been having issues, or you might know the whole story.  But this is the current update. 
3. For anyone else who struggles with infertility, so that you know you aren't alone.  This whole process freaking sucks - we might not know your specific story, but we understand.  

Lets start from the beginning.  

October of 2012 - We have been married almost 5 years at this time and we hear the question "when are you going to start your family?" Our fall back answer was "eventually!"  Up until now, a child really wasn't feasible with our jobs and our financial situation.  But then we found out that Johnathan and Ashley (my brother and sister in law) were expecting.  We knew we only wanted one child, and being close to their cousin that lives so close would be important for them to have a "sibling-ish" type bond.  Being the same age would allow them to grow up together.   So we talked about it and decided that it was time to stop trying to prevent getting pregnant.  I can't say we were really "trying" but we weren't stopping it at this point.  

December of 2013 - Over a year later and we still aren't pregnant.  This is where our conversations to go see a doctor start coming into play.  I knew I could potentially have some issues getting pregnant because my mom had to use chlomid to get pregnant with my brother - like mother like daughter right??  Well, this is a very hard mental block to get through.  To admit to yourself that something is wrong with your body that it isn't doing what its made to do.  You rationalize.  Maybe its just not the right time.  It'll happen.  Every one tells you to relax - it'll happen.  

**Disclaimer - this is all science to me and you all know that I love science - so if you don't want to know about ovulation, sperm counts, motility or all that infertility jazz...let your eyes glaze over for a bit**

April of 2014 - We finally have our first doctors appointment.  It went great.  Our doctor explained everything well and he was funny.  He made it sound like bada-bing-bada-boom-baby!!!!  They took blood from me that day and they scheduled Brian's first semen analysis.  My blood work came back and I had abnormally high levels of AMH at 8.4 when you want it between 4-6.8.  Basically that means I hardly ever ovulate - i.e.  I don't drop eggs. Brian's sperm count came back at 2 million and only 50% of them were moving.  Which means he really only had about 1 million viable swimmers.  Sounds great right?? No, normal count is 20 million healthy ones.  

So from there Brian had to see a urologist to make sure there was no underlying cause of the infertility like cancer.  The urologist gave him the all clear and put him on chomid to up his count.  I was put on Metformin to fix my hormone imbalance and try and get me to ovulate.  This is where the waiting starts.  

Waiting is the worst.  

You can't do anything else but ponder the "what if's"

You hope for better results next time.  

You research what the next steps could be. 

So scientist in me - that's what I did.  I focused on the science.  I did research.  I knew we were hoping to get better results next time and we could just do a round of chomid for me and bam!  Baby!  If that didn't work, then you go to IUI (inter-uterine insemination).  Basically that's artificial insemination using Brian's sperm.  If that didn't work, then you do IVF (in vitro fertilization) where they take out my egg, take out his sperm, combine them in a petri dish, let them grow a few days and then put the embryo back in me.  

We were really hoping to hear we were eligible for an IUI. We knew our levels were pretty bad, so the $150 option of cholmid for me wouldn't be an option.  The IUI is about $1,500 to do a cycle.  IVF is about $12,500.  So obviously we were hoping for the cheaper option.  

September of 2014 - More tests.  Brian's count went up to  6.5 million...but still only 50% viable.  So really its only 3.25 million.  But still better! Downfall, you can't do an IUI unless you have at least 10 million viable sperm or you are just wasting your money.  I appreciate the doctors honesty but hearing to stay on meds and hope for better next time sucks.  

This is also the same time we get the news that Johnathan and Ashley are expecting again!  Yay!  Anyone who has gone through infertility knows that we are sincerely happy for them.    I can't emphasize that enough.  I love my niece and nephew so much, but here is where it gets hard for us.  When I got the picture that River was going to be a big sister, I was so extremely happy for them because it's what they wanted - but I was so extremely sad for us.  I was probably the worst wedding guest ever at Jacque and Nate's wedding because I couldn't stop crying.  I want to be a Mom so bad and I want to love my own child unconditionally and to just keep wishing and not have it happen was so hard.  

Until this past week (I'll get there), this time frame was probably the hardest for me.  It seemed like there were baby announcements everywhere I looked and I so hoped I could be a part of them one day.  My heart ached.  I would stand in front of the mirror and try to imagine what it would be like if I had a baby bump.  I was extremely jealous and all the emotions were building inside.  So I started to talk about it a little more to people.  Like I said before, talking about it helps me process.  So I visited infertility blogs and related to people who had been there too.  I was a silent observer at this point, but it helped me process internally.   

December of 2014 - Brian has another analysis done.  He is only at 9 million and the motility went down.  Really only about 4 million viable.  So IUI is out.  We are told that really our only options are IVF or adoption.  We know IVF is incredibly expensive ($12,500) and so we start looking into adoption.  When we tell people those are our options, they reply with "well why don't you just adopt?"  Like its that easy.   Holy crap.  Adoption is also crazy expensive.  Have you ever looked at one of those forms?  You have to fill out what you are "okay" with.  

Mom on drugs the whole pregnancy?  

What about alcohol?  

What about no prenatal care?  

Do you want to pay for living costs while she is pregnant? 

Pay this money upfront, but you'll lose money if they change their mind.  

They have to pick you - tell me why you are the best couple who deserves their baby.  

Read the other parent's stories who have waited twice as along as you for a family and then feel like an ass when you think about going up against them for a child.   

Adoption is a hard thing to swallow.  Not only do you have to mentally consider what you do and do not want to agree to - but you also have to mourn the idea that you won't have a baby of your own.  

I was talking about all this with my Mom one day trying to process.  The next day she tells me that her and Dad will pay for a round of IVF.  My jaw hits the floor.  We didn't ask, they just offered.  Words cannot express my gratitude to them.  It wouldn't be an option for us without their help.  I could go on and on about how awesome my parents are.  But the bottom line is, I want to be a Mom so bad because I want to be like my Mom.  My Mom is my best friend and she is my idol.  If I can be half the Mom she is, my kid is set. 

So we schedule an appointment to meet with our doctor about IVF. 

January 2015 -  Doctors appointment goes well.  He thinks we are good candidates for IVF.  Cost estimate $12,500-14,500.  Ugh.  That's a hard one to swallow. We take home the packet and read through the whole thing.  Side effects?  Holy crap.  This should be fun.  Injections?  Yay, needles!  But overall, we are excited, we are finally moving forward. 

February 2015 - I'm at girls swimming state and Brian attends and infertility conference in KC.  He attends a session about how to survive the cost of infertility.  (we were truly grateful to my parents being willing to pay, but we wanted to minimize the cost as much as possible).  He hears about IVF abroad.  Basically, do all your testing here - send the results abroad and then go there to do the procedure.  Why?  Its so much cheaper!!!  Even with travel, accommodations etc - its only about $8,500 for the whole thing.  

So I do what I do best.  I start researching.  I contact a few companies and we finally settle on the one Brian heard about at the conference - IVF Treatment Abroad with Ruth Pellow.  Ruth is a nurse in Greece and she works with a few clinics to get couples from the US to come abroad to do treatment.  She sends us tons of info on the places and we have to decide.  Lots of communication occurs...

April 2015 - We are going to Greece.  We decided that we will be doing a round of IVF in July in Athens, Greece.  We start doing all our testing that needs done.   Brian has another semen analysis.  His count is up to 12.5 million!!! But the motility is 0%.  Freaking 0%!!!!! That means that NONE of his sperm are viable.  

UGH!!!!

So they want him to wait till June 11th to do another test.  (there is a chance it was an error).  Everyone cross your fingers that it was an error.  Because if the motility is 0% - IVF is off the table and we are back to square one.  

June 2015 - I get a rash on my side.  I think its just a fungal infection and I put some ointment on it and its not helping.  Go to my summer job to try and work through the pain.  Not happening.  Feel like I'm going to throw up the pain is so bad.  A friend takes me to Urgent Care - I have freaking shingles.  

weFNJIO; T4WO[V FNWOANC[FNUOW J WIO RHIO RH. *insert multiple curse words*

UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

You have got to be kidding me.  

Nope. 

Shingles. 

So I email Ruth to see how this will effect IVF.  Ruth can't find much research on it (neither can I) but her/the embryologist thinks we should be okay.  As long as the sores are gone by the time we get there...it shouldn't be effected.  Shouldn't be effected is hard to swallow when we have one chance for this and its a lot of freaking money. 

So we talk to our doctor here and the embryologist.  He agrees that there really isn't any research on this.  Apparently we are a rarity.  Perfect. 

He says to wait.  

Wait?  

Yes, wait.  Shingles is the chicken pox virus reactivated in my nerve endings.  If a woman gets chicken pox within the first trimester of the pregnancy, the birth defects rate increases.  So I could potentially be exposing my child to the virus, thus risking their health.

We are not okay with that.  It's not a risk we can take.  

So we wait.  

Until next summer. 

Why next summer you ask?  Because we have to travel on certain days for the IVF cycle and I can't take off work for 2 weeks in the middle of the school year.  And no, my cycle doesn't match up with Christmas or Spring break either.  Bah!  

So July of 2016 it is.   

We are back to the waiting game.  We are still going to do the final testing to make sure we would have been all clear to do an IVF cycle this year so that we don't waste a year of waiting.  But still.  Its so frustrating.  

We are hoping that there is a bigger plan to all of this.  That the timing just isn't right and next year will be better in the long run.  But the whole situation sucks.  Freaking sucks.  

No positive pregnancy test. 

No pregnancy announcement.

No picking out furniture. 

No getting the nursery ready. 

No baby shower. 

No swollen feet. 

No contractions. 

No baby.  

At least not for another year.  So today, today I am struggling.  I'm struggling to be positive and see the big picture.  I'm tired of waiting.  I'm tired of my body not doing what it's designed to do.  

But.  

I have to remember that there is a grand scheme of things.  Hopefully in a few years I can look back and think about this challenging time and be grateful for the hardships that brings Brian and I closer and makes us a stronger team.  

Eventually we will be a family of 5 (Jack and Ally are our kids right now) and hopefully I can read this in the future with a little one snuggling in my arms one day.