Quit???

I'm thinking about quitting my blog. I'm finding that I don't really feel like posting and I've never had very many people read it anyway........I don't know. Just thinking about quitting. We'll see.

Andrew Jack

So.....the story of Andrew Jack.

On Sunday 3/22 my mom called me at 9pm and said "there is a baby at the hospital with a cleft lip and palate that needs adopted. Are you interested?" I said....."what are you talking about?"

You see, my husband and I have been trying to have a baby for a while now. We have been through 2 failed IVF cycles and were going to try another one this summer. We thought about adoption but hadn't registered with an agency yet as we were still going to try more IVF first. (Adoption seeming to be so expensive and all.......).

Anyway, there's a labor and delivery nurse at the hospital (we'll call her "nurse baby" in this note). So "nurse baby" is a patient at the doctors office where my mom works as a medical assistant. And a while back, my mom being as talkative as she is with everyone (she makes friends with everyone she meets.....) she told her of our troubles and said "if you ever have a baby that needs a home give me a call." So "nurse baby" was working on Sunday (on a day she usually doesn't work and in post-partum that she usually doesn't work in) and she got assigned to the birth mother who wanted to give her baby up. "Nurse baby" remembered us/my mom and found the home phone number for the receptionist at the doctors office and called and asked her for my mom's number. She called my mom....then my mom called me.

Greg and I went up Sunday night at 10pm to see baby and birth mom. We spoke with her for quite some time.....came back the next morning and spoke with the social work, plastic surgery, financial counselors, nurses, and a lawyer.....and less than 24 hours after getting the call we were signing our initial paperwork for adoption.He had to stay a couple days in the NICU as he had to get put to sleep to get impressions made for his mouth as he is getting a splint made and fitted this coming Monday to help him eat better until his cleft palate and lip are repaired.

He is wonderful, perfect and we love him with all our hearts.

I feel that there were so many factors that had to be aligned for this to happen.......I think that God and our guardian angels/guides were looking out for us and I truly believe that he is meant to be ours.

His name is Andrew Jack. Andrew because that was our boy name that we had picked out with the IVF's. And Jack because when birth mom decided to give him up and we hadn't been called yet (we met him when he was 15 hours old).....the nursery nurses decided to "adopt" him and give him a name. They named him Jack. So we are keeping that as his middle name to honor those nurses that cared for him as their own during those 15 hours he was alone.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts, prayers and support.

News!!!!!!!

I haven't posted in a long time because there was nothing to post about.

However.....THINGS HAVE CHANGED.

We (emergently) adopted a baby on Monday of this week!

It was a complete surprise.......

We were not even in the adoption process currently......

It is a long and complicated story that I will post later on because right now I have to take little Andy to the family doc for his first checkup.

Will post the whole wonderful teriffic story very soon i promise! :)

Results are in (mostly) and more waiting.........

Well, the results are in and my testing came back that I have some type of thrombophilia. However all the tests are not back yet. My doctor wants to push me into another cycle using Heparin (blood thinner) injections twice daily - which mind you would continue for 8 MONTHS if i get pregnant.

So this thrombophilia makes me more prone to clotting which means that is probably the reason my little embryos won't implant correctly - which the heparin would supposedly fix. However - pregnancy is a "pro-thrombotic" state anyway - meaning that anyone is more prone to clotting when they are pregnant, even without thrombophilia. Now, the question I pose to my doctor is WHY would I want to enter a pro-thrombotic state such as pregnancy if I am already pro-thrombotic??? He says "don't worry about it, you'll be on heparin - no problem."

He can't understand my worry. Maybe as a nurse I've seen too much. I have seen people die from pulmonary embolus (blood clot to the lungs) which is the #1 worry. I've also seen people die from bleeding to death from heparin.

So you see my dilemma..........

Anyway - I'm not making any decisions now. I want a second opinion from an actual hematologist, an expert per se. I have an appt with hematology later this month after all my results are in to discuss with this expert physician (who mind you will NOT benefit monetarily from my next cycle.....) to see if he thinks it would be too risky to try and get pregnant. Not that I think my doctor would risk my life to make money.....but the truth is that I work in healthcare.....physicians do get upset when their patients die. But you know what??? When a patient dies, they say "man, that's too bad, I feel horrible, I wish things were different, yada yada yada......" and they MOVE ON to the next patient. So, truthfully, it wouldn't matter that much to him if I died. I am just another patient. That sounds cold - but that's reality.

I HAVE TO STAND UP FOR MYSELF AND BE MY OWN VOICE.

So - the funny thing is, that I am at peace with possibly not doing another cycle and moving on to adoption, etc..... I've always wanted to adopt anyway, even if I could carry a baby.....and this situation has made me realize that I don't want to die. I want to live and raise a family and be an old grandmother with lots of grandkids running around. I don't want to be the heroic 32 year old that died trying to get pregnant. I'd rather be the old grandmother who adopted a bunch of kids and gave them the most loving home possible and is now rewarded with a house full of beautiful grandkids.

I will keep my mind open though in case the hemotologist says the risk is minimal and I should try another cycle. BUT - if he says there is increased risk (and as my infertility doctor says: "all pregnancies are risky anyway"), I will peacefully give up fertility treatments and either search for a surrogate to carry my frozen embryo's, or donate my embryos ----- or adopt, which again I want to do someday anyway.

So, that is what I know for now.
More waiting.

Vote for me!!!

I got the results (most of them anyway.....) and they are not good. I will post later with the details.

In the meantime (my groceries are melting while I type this......) here's a link to a contest I entered - I would ask that you click the link and vote for me!!! It's only a click of the mouse and you can vote once a day.

thanks a million

http://www.brickfish.com/Pages/PhotosAlbums/PhotoView.aspx?picid=674263_12894945&pid=1371531&scid=327&=HP_all_PPIMEMAIL_PPIMEMAIL&isep=1&pbapi=1375374&pbvi=44705828&pdi=2366

Next Step........

Scheduled for lab work Tuesday and follow up appt on Halloween for results/plan.
Lab work includes:

Antiphospholipid Antibody Panel (which includes the following):
1. Anti-Cardiolipin
2. Anti-Phospholipid
3. Lupus Anti-Coagulant
4. Anti-Beta2 Glycoprotein
5. PTT

Thrombophilia Panel (which includes the following):
1. Antithrombin Activity
2. APTT
3. Factor V Leiden Coag
4. PAI-1 Activity
5. Protein C Activity
6. Protein S Activity
7. Prothrombin
8. MTHFR

Sperm DNA Fragmentation.

Whew......

Second IVF Failure........

I haven't blogged about my second IVF cycle because I feel like I have a tendency towards being a little negative when I blog at times and I wanted to be completely positive in my attitude towards my second IVF cycle.

Today was my HCG level after my second IVF.......the result was 0.1 which means not pregnant by a long shot.

So anyway, I see my doctor tomorrow to discuss what to do now. I spoke with him on the phone today and he said since my embryos are all "perfect" and my lining was "perfect" and my labwork was "perfect" both times......that now he needs me to do some testing to find out why I can't implant ("get pregnant"). Testing for thrombophelia, killer cells, etc...... We'll talk more tomorrow.

So.....now I am walking down a little longer infertility road than I thought I'd be walking down. I thought that we could bypass the low sperm count and the PCOS by doing the IVF.....putting the little embryos right where they need to be......but now it turns out I am a little more broken than I thought I was and I can't seem to get my embryos to implant even when everything is "perfect."

Oddly enough....I think I'm doing ok mentally. Sure it sucks, sure I'm sad........but I feel even more confident that some way, some day, some how I will have my babies. Whether I carry them, whether we adopt them, whether I use a surrogate.......(a work friend offered to be my surrogate today - it was one of the most awesome things anyone has ever said to me)........I know that the road to my kids is just a little longer and more complicated than some (and I'm sure less complicated than some). It's just that.....it's my road and I have to walk it and figure it out. But I know that some how in the future - I will have my kids.