CD 3 (Yesterday) - Screeching HALT

On Wednesday, right when I got home from my blood draw for my progesterone test, Michael sat me down and well, brought the quest for children to a screeching halt for this cycle. As you may or may not know, Michael has a very painful condition called Ankylosing Spondylitis, its a type of auto immune disease. Well, it's been flaring up pretty badly lately and he has a pretty hard time moving around. Essentially his hip bone/pelvis is fusing to his spine, kind of limits his mobility. There is medication that slows the progression of the disease and in doing so really limits the pain. Unfortunately it is VERY expensive and with his funny student insurance we've had a hard time getting it for him on a regular basis. We've finally found a pharmacy that is going to work with us so we only have to pay a $75 copay per month, Rite Aid Rocks!!

We've also found out recently that quite a few of Michael's blood relatives have the genetic marker for the disease, and a few have developed the disease. The research he's done says that he has about a 50% chance of passing on the genetic marker and then if you have the genetic marker you have about a 20% chance of developing the disease. While that doesn't seem like to much of chance, the fact that so many of his relatives are suffering from it is scaring him, and honestly me as well. He was thinking that he didn't want to pass on this disease to any offspring. But he still wants children, so that leaves us with a couple of options. We can adopt or we can have children using a sperm donor.

Since, there is no reason I can't have children we are leaning towards the sperm donor option. So now we have start the research on how this all works. We've found a Cryobank that is located in the same building as my Dr. and there is even a donor that looks like he might be a good match, similar coloring & build to Michael. We thought about still trying to do the IUI this month, but we figured that would be too much stress for us to try and get everything together in time. So we are going to put it off until next month.

In the mean time there is so much to do! We both have to have all sorts of tests done, FDA regulations I guess, HIV, Hepatitis tests, I have to have a CMV antibody test. It's just crazy. Apparently CMV is a common virus similar to the Chicken Pox & Herpes virus's in that once you have it, the virus never really leaves your system. Many of the donor's are positive for the antibodies for the virus and if they are positive, then I must be to. If I'm not that limits our choices even more.

So much stuff to learn!

CD 2

I wrote the prior blog yesterday, but I guess I didn't post it. Oh well. So today has been a bit a whirl wind. I went over to the local hospital to have my blood drawn for a progesterone test, and I know the Dr's office needs the results back right away. My doctor is up in Spokane, about 90 miles north of where I live. The hospital can't perform the progesterone test so they have to send it up to Spokane to be run. I didn't know if that would be enough time and was thinking I may have to drive all the way up to Spokane just to have this blood test. That would NOT be good. Luckily, the Dr's office says as long as they can get the results tomorrow morning it is all fine. Goodness!

Tomorrow morning I'll get a phone call from the doctor's office letting me know if I can start the medications. If I do then 5 days of lovely hormonal drugs. Woo hoo!

IUI #1 - CD 1!!!!

Ok, so here we go...



Called the RE today, and we are all set. I'm going to pick up my fertility drugs at the pharmacy this evening. Then it's 2 pills (Femara) a day for five days starting on Thursday, $123 for the Rx, crazy!! Tomorrow I find out how much the Follistim will cost me. On Tues next week, I start the Follistim - two shots, yikes! Then I go in for an ultrasound and some testing on 10/4, 7 am!!! Then if all looks good, they will give me a shot to trigger ovulation. Mike will have to 'leave his sample' and then the Dr.'s office will wash them all up and as Mike says "leave 'em at my front door".



If it sounds complicated, well, it really kind of is.



We are hoping that we are making the right decision. I'm just starting to get a little bit worried. I'm 33 years old!! We started this whole trying to conceive thing right before my 29th birthday. We were certain we would be done by now. So many of my friends who started TTC after I did already have two. Things are little bit up in the air around here, when we moved to Idaho last Jan I was able to keep my job that I had in Folsom, which was great! But, while it sounded great on paper, it didn't work out so well in practice.



So, I'm really starting to look for work up here. I know I won't be able to make anything close to what I was making back in California, but really, life is so much cheaper here, it's not that big a deal anyway. And, well, I'm already so happy knowing that I'll be doing something different soon.



We weren't going to worry about starting IUI until my next cycle, but AF was 5 days late this past cycle and well, she's never late anymore so I was getting really excited, but sure enough she showed up. It really got me thinking though and really wanting to be a mom and to get that BFP (Big Fat Positive - on a pregnancy test), so here we are, spending money we don't really have. We'll make it work, we always do.



Finger's crossed!!