Sad day

Well, today AF started so no pregnancy this month. I am sad and disappointed but realize its only my first try and wont be my last. However, hubby and I are going to put it off for a few months to save money and get his business going. Even though I am frustrated with that. I know its for the best.

TWW ( two week wait)

Well, its getting down to the finish of the TWW and I am nervous as can be. We inseminated on Nov 12/13 which was a little bit strange. Nothing like trying to be romantic with the husband and he goes and get the vial of sperm and squirts it into me. Don't get me wrong I am glad we have this option but still.

So, now it on to the dreaded two week wait....
I also stopped drinking coffee that week...what am I thinking I should have done that before..
My first week I experience headaches and exhaustion ( could be coffee withdrawal)
This second week the headache finally went away and my lower back has been hurting since ( don't know if this is a good sign)

Others signs I had a little bit of dizziness, lightheadness and vivid dreams. However, I wake up with the sense that I am not pregnant.

I took a test today which I think ended up being early and showed a negative.

I checked my calendar and my last two cycles have been 30-32 days and I am only on day 24 so maybe its not ready to show anything. I am going to wait now to see if I actually miss my period.

As of right now, my stomach been bothering me today and I am tired. I could go to sleep right now but its only 6pm.

My wait will be over in a week and I am scared. Scared that I wont be, Scared that I will be and scared that I never will be..

But in the mean time...

I miss coffee!

Frustrations and Excitement

I am writing this post our of frustration and excitement. I am frustrated in regards to this areas attitude toward the donor company we have chosen to work with and at home insems in general. I called my OBGYN to see if I could get a CMV test done. I spoke to the nurse who then spoke to the doctor. She called me back and was very negative about the whole idea of it. She told me that my doctor refuses to do the test because he is not familiar with the company that I have chosen and without even researching it has decided it was not a safe place for me to use and that my only option is with the Sperm bank that he works with. I explain to her that I have done careful research and has found nothing negative about the company and that I have even checked out state certifications. She didnt seem to care and went on about how unsafe at home insemination is. I then checked with the other medical facility in the area. I called and got ahold of a patient assistant who I explain that I wanted to work with this particular sperm bank and she told me that that should be no problem but she wanted me to speak to the nurse practicioner and that they had to call me back. I waited and received a voicemail awhile later with the same woman that the nurse practicioner would not be calling me because they don't do that sort of thing and I heard nothing more. I felt like crying because here my husband was pushing me to get the CMV test and I couldn't get someone to do it. Since, I don't need doctor approval to do I have decided to go ahead and get only negative sperm and basically screw them.
So, the excitement part is that we went ahead and ordered the sperm and it should arrive today. This is my first time and very nervous in getting the timing right. Currently, my plan is that I am taking the OPK test everyday and when I get my positive we will inseminate 12 hrs later and then 24 hrs later. I just hope this works because my poor husband wont have the patience for us to keep trying and trying. Wish me luck!

On a side note: As I write this post the sperm arrived I guess its going to happen :)

The paperwork

I noticed I didn't finish off the continuation of our story. My husband spent over two hours reading though the site and looking at sperm. He was quite disappointed that there were no pictures of the men on the options area but he knows we can purchase them later if available. Since then I have set in all my paperwork to NW and recently found out we have been fully accepted. Yeah! Now, its time to decide when we are going to do this. We have a lot going on right now so I may not look at beginning this journey for a couple of months but that is ok.. we are at least progressing.

Very Bad News...

My husband and I received some very bad news last night. Our best friends who are 24 weeks pregnant went in to the doctor yesterday to have an ultrasound done to find out the sex of their child. However, afterdoing the ultrasound instead of finding a healthy baby instead the baby had passed and on their fifth wedding anniversary it was born stillborn. We were sad for their loss especially since they always thought concieving for them was out of the picture. This is her second miscarriage this year so I am not sure how they will move forward. As for our journey towards pregnancy I have sent in the paperwork for NW and now waiting to hear back from them. I hope that this incident with my friend hasn't changed my husbands mind scared that this may happen to us. I know pregnancy is a risk but its still a risk I am willing to take.

The green eye of jealosy

I cant help I get jealous everytime I around some who is pregnant. Does anyone else have that feeling? My three real female friends are all pregnant and I am not. It just makes me so mad sometimes. Here my husband and I had been trying for so long and nothing....they just start trying trying and poof they are all pregnant..GRRR just had to vent for a sec...

Moving Forward

After coming to the conclusion that adoption, fostering and donor sperm from family wasn't going to work, I started researching donor sperm from a sperm bank. Over the years I have heard about donor sperm though TV, books and ect but have never known anyone to do the option or really knew anything about it. Without talking to my husband about ( he wasnt ready) I started doing some research online with our medical offices here in town. I found that a local hospital now offered infertility treatment but the prices were outrageous. I kept searching and one of the OBGYN names came up on NW Cryobank website. I started doing some research on the site and really like the idea of a at home insemination. It sounded so much more personal then going to the doctor and having him the IUI. I did a lot of researching that day of other sperm donor banks and to see if IUI at home is really safe and found nothing but good things about. The other sperm banks I found were pretty expensive and you cant do IUI at home. I decided that when the time was right I would bring it up to my husband.

A few days later I finally got up the nerve to talk to my husband about it. After explanation he was fine with idea and probably a little Leary since it would be another mans sperm and he is still dealing with all of this. After that we didn't speak of it but I did some reading and decided I really wanted to get the paperwork in.

However, I was planning on talking to my DH about it but I asked for our friends address as a secondary contact person and he found out that way. It was weird we never went into much discussion about it afterwards. I then saw that we had to pick out the donor sperm and asked him about a few days later. The mistake I made is I didnt ask him the right away, caught him off guard, he said NO and I got upset. ( I know very dumb of me) I started crying and acting like an idiot. I guess the stress of all this gets to me sometimes. He was frustrated, I was frustrated and felt like a big dope. A couple days later after we cooled off We decided to spend a friday evening looking at the site and begin picking out the sperm...

A few weeks later..

The next step of the journey happened a few weeks later. I had taken some much needed time off from work. My husband and I has not really avoided the subject but he was healing from the surgery and didnt need the added stress. He brought up the subject to my surprise. We both still wanted children but now we had to look at other options. Our choices had become Donor Sperm ( from family), Adoption, Foster Care or not to have children. We started reviewing the options. My husband was the one that brought up Donor sperm from family. This way we could still have the genes from his family. However, as we went though the different family members no one seemed appropriate for this. We then discussed the idea of adoption versus foster care. We came to the conclusion that foster care would be a great option for us. I contacted our local state agencies about the foster care process and spoke to a friend that dealt with that in her previous employment. They sent me information on adoption versus foster care. However, what I found out wasnt very promising. In the state that we live in they do everything they can to keep the kids in the home. Fostering would be difficult with our lifestyle. Hubby and I both work and drive over 30 miles one ways and the thoughts of kids coming in our lives short time and possibly get set back to a never winning situation didnt impress either one of us. Adoption would be great but we are looking at least two years, homestudies and finding the right child that fits us. We were back to square one and had hit a road block in our journey towards pregnancy.

The beginning of our journey towards pregnancy.

On June 16, 2008 was the hardest day of my life it was the day that my husband and I found out that we were never going to have a biological child.

About three years ago my husband and I decided that we wanted to have a child as part of our life. We had been together five years and felt we were ready to make this step. The problem that we could be facing is that I have a disability caused by a neural tube defect which could limit my ability to have children. I was ready to take the risk though and so was he. We started our journey the way we are suppose to. My husband and I both got physicals done, I had an in dept conversation with my OBGYN about out plan and he started me on Prenatal pills with extra amounts of folic acid right away. The plan was that I would take the pills for 6 weeks and then my husband and I would start trying.

The six weeks seem to take forever. I remember feeling so exciting about the prospect of becoming pregnant on the very first try and getting to tell our families. This would be the first grandchild for both our sides of the family and the first great grandchild. The thought of going though pregnancy, having a baby shower and all the other activities were so exciting for us. Finally, the six weeks were up and it was time. My husband and I just trying naturally. We didn't do anything special except of course to have relations often. We figured if we were together every day or almost everyday then something would happen. Our first month went by and nervously we waiting until it was time to take the test. I took the test and it came back as negative. Disappointed I also knew this was our first go at it and since its only a 20% chance of becoming pregnant each month that we would keep trying. The next few months we went though the same routines and still nothing. Finally, a year has gone by and I decided to go visit my OBGYN once again to see if he had any suggestions.

The conclusion of the appointment showed that I had a tilted cervix which the doctor gave some different suggestions of positions to use. I went though xrays and ultra sounds and they found nothing wrong with me that would suggest it would be hard for me to conceive. They lightly questioned my husband who is a healthy male with no past injury or illness that could cause any issues. My OBGYN suggested that we keep trying and sooner or later something would happen.

All though the year 2007 we kept trying. However, there was much stress in our lives due to our house being remodeled and us only being able to live in part of the house. I was somewhat thankful not to have a child at this time period because there wouldn't be much room for one. Finally, around Christmas the remolding was finished and we were back to old lives again with some additional changes.
Now, this whole time at work my two coworkers and I were dreaming of all becoming pregnant about the same time. I was skepitical about this since my husband and I had such a difficult time conceiving but who knows what may happen. My one coworker was prenant in January and the second one in Feb both getting pregnant on the first or second try. I was really hoping that I would have the same luck in March. By now I have read much information on the Ovulation cycles and getting pregnant. I was basically a pro but couldnt do it myself. March came and we testing negative again. I was so disappointed.

My parents were in town and I would have love to announced that to them during the time they were here. I begin wondering why werent able to get pregnant. I had normal cycles, I have been tested and found out I was able to attempt a pregnacy. SO what was wrong. My attention started focusing on my husband. I knew that I could buy a at home sperm kit to see if he had sperm. I bought the kit and we took the test. To our surprise the test that he had a low count. Well after taking both tests and finding this out we decided to get an second opinion from our doctor. Sadly, the test results we got from the doctor showed even worse. It showed it as a zero sperm count. My husband was devestated by the news and it was suggested that he go talk to a urologist to discuss to see if they could find any answers on why he has a zero sperm count.

Of course at this time when we got this horrible news our best friends who were supposedly unable to conceive found out they were pregnant.

Our meeting with the urologist came with more questions then answers and a lot of frustrations. My husband still had a zero sperm count and there was no explanation. The worse part of the whole thing to even find out if his body made sperm he would have to go though a testicular biospy. Now, at this point we would have done anything to find out our results. We decided to go though the biopsy and with help of family members who help cover financial costs we set up an appointment with Mayo clinic.

Our first appt with Mayo was just an consultation. There was nothing the doctor could do until he actually performed the procedure. So we scheduled one and two weeks later we were back at Mayo clinic. I tried to be extremely positive the day of the procedure. I kept telling myself that once they perform the biopsy they would find enough sperm that hadn't make it though his system and we would be able to use it to get the child that we so desired. Finally, what seemed like hours the doctor came into to tell us the news. What he told me broke my heart in an hundred million pieces. He told us that no sperm was found and that my husband had primary testicular failure. This meaning that his pituitary gland didn't send the correct signals to his testes to produce the sperm. This could have been caused by a birth defect or a gene that was passed on. On the way home all I could do was cry and feel sorry for us because we would never have our own biological child.

It felt that my life changed forever that day. As we dealt with the anger and sadness of reality of this we would also have to make the decision on what to do with the future of our need to have a child. This is how our journey began and as it leads of to achieving our dream more of this will be added.