Tis the season

It is almost Thanksgiving so that means getting in the Christmas spirit. Two years ago I would have had my trees up by now, yes trees! This year I am letting my daughter decorate the tree. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't even put one up at all. I am just not in the spirit at all. Christmas is a reminder of so many things. This year it will be 18 months since we delivered William into heaven. It will also be one year since we miscarried. And to top it off I should be days away from delivering a perfectly healthy baby. Instead the 3 of us will celebrate us. No babies, no toddlers. Don't get me wrong I am so blessed to have Delainee and David to spend Christmas with. That doesn't make my heart not hurt. It doesn't make my heart not weep for what should be. This is the new me. This is my reality. There will always be empty seats at our table, always. 

My dear friend and photographer Lora created the most amazing family pictures for us. She is wonderful and I know her heart breaks with mine. You can check her out at www.milesandme.com. She is also on Facebook at milesandme. Here are the wonderful pictures she created for us. 

Also here is the tree Delainee decorated! She did great! 

We will always remember

Today was our second time going to the Remembrance of Life event put on my Methodist Women's Hospital and Healthcare. It just amazes me how such an event can just bring every emotion to surface again. I remembered the faith I had that our twins would both be ok because Delainee beat the late heartbeat and we had a flawless pregnancy (besides hives but seriously that was nothing now)! Then when we found out that baby A's heartbeat stopped. I put all of my faith into William being perfect! And everything was. I was good and sick and he was growing perfectly. Then our world was shattered when we went in and found out he has just died. Delivering a baby you can't take home is not something anyone should have to do. Then Christmas right as we let off balloons I knew my pregnancy was once again coming to an end and it was confirmed a few days later. We knew William was perfect but we didn't know if our other babies were perfect on earth so we did another round of ivf and tested us, me and embryos and transferred 2 genetically normal embryos. One took and I saw the little heart beating on ultrasound. David wasn't with me because of planting being so crazy this year and I face timed him and had the ultrasound picture showing when he answered. I tried to take a screenshot of his reaction but did it wrong (I was a lot excited). He came in really close and said is that a baby?! I had bleeding the day before so we were worried but it was just normal implantation bleeding left over and there was a heartbeat and the day after my birthday we went up and like with William our baby had just passed! So 4 babies in right around a year. FOUR! So today and everyday we remember our babies until we meet in Heaven. This isn't how I expected our story to go but it is our story.

 

Happy Angelversary William

Yesterday was a day I never thought I would "celebrate". As the day grew closer and closer my anxiety went through the roof. How could it be a year? Our year should have looked so different. It should have been filled with kicks that David and Delainee could feel. It should have been filled with making a nursery. It should have been filled with first Christmas, first Easter, first Mother's Day and Father's Day as a bigger family. Starting baby food and learning to hold a bottle. Instead this year has been filled with different firsts. First holidays without our sweet boy and dreaming what he would be doing now had be been born around his December due date. He would be laughing at his silly sister and maybe even waking her at night. Instead our hearts are broken and will never be the same. No matter what our lives can't be the same. We can't undo the losses we have had. This week at bible school the kids were told about how God heals everyon, even if it isn't in the way we ask. William and his siblings have been healed in heaven. They never have to face this crazy world. That doesn't make it easy but knowing I will see them one day and have happy tears because I get to see their beautiful faces makes my heart happy. 

Delainee is absolutely the best sister. As we celebrated William she told me "I will 

be with you every step of the way today" and she was. She held me when I cried, she told me William is healed in heaven and she expressed her feeling to me. I am so thankful for her and David. I don't know if I would have made it without them. Our family may not be big on earth but it sure is in heaven! 

A tradition in our house is chocolate chip pancakes for birthdays. So I felt it would only be right for William's Angelversary. 

 We added 2 statues to our flower bed around our mailbox. I have decided this would be a good place for our remembrance garden. We planted 4 burning bushes for our 4 Angels here. 

Delainee let balloons go so that William would have balloons in Heaven. 

At dark we also let lanterns go. Mine didn't stay up but 2 made it. I just know William loved our "celebration". 

Until we meet again sweet boy. XOXOXOXO 

Reality Sucks

I thought infertility was going to be the hardest thing I would deal with. Once I got pregnant that I would carry my baby with no problems, just like I did with Delainee. 3 times my body has proven me wrong. 3 times! We did everything right. After our second loss I had panels run to check for blood clotting disorders. We did testing on our chromosomes and we did testing on embryos. Even still I became pregnant after we transferred 2 perfect embryos. One implanted and at 6 weeks had a heartbeat. The anxiety was always there. What if's. We went for our 8 week ultrasound and I knew before being told there was no heartbeat. And just like with William it just had happened. The baby measures perfect just no heartbeat. How does this keep happening to us? Why does it? We will likely never know those answers. It is amazing that Delainee is here. It is amazing my body didn't let her down. I don't know how to wrap my head around everything that has happened in the last year. I am just tired, so tired. And I have to learn to live for David and Delainee and stop living on the hope of giving them a son/daughter or brother/sister. Reality sucks and I hate it. I want my babies back. I want to be able to protect them, that is my job.

When enough is enough.

When do you call it quits? How do you decide you have tried as much as you possibly can? I knew I would know if we reached that point and here we are. We have gotten to the end of the road. To the right we have the option to continue. Continue trying to make Delainee a sister to a baby she can hold. Continue trying for another baby we can bring home with us. Continue pouring all of the money we have into fertility treatments. Continue having broken hearts when once again a cycle isn't successful or we hear the words I don't see a heartbeat. Continue having shots every night and 10 plus pills just to find out again they didn't work. Or on the other side we grieve and learn to live without the other way. We can focus on us and our family of 3 on this earth. Will that longing ever be gone? Probably not completely. But eventually you just know when enough is enough. And it doesn't have to be when you run out of embryos again. It can simply be because you miscarry again and your heart can't take another loss. It is when the fears again outweigh the wants, and for good reason. When financially and physically you just can't take enough. Over $40,000 is gone and until heaven we don't have our babies to hold. It is time to be our family of 3 and focus on Delainee. She wants to be a sister more than anything so now we have to make her, a 6 year old, understand that that isn't going to happen. It isn't going to be easy but it will be worth it. It will be worth it to not put all of our energy into building a family that isn't going to be. It will be worth it, it has to be worth it.

Edited May 27, 2015 I originally wrote this post 2 weeks ago when I started bleeding and thought yet again I was miscarrying. I went in the next day and we had a baby and a heartbeat. I could breath a little easy but still not as easy as the girl that was pregnant almost 7 years ago. Today we went for our 8 week check up and we found out our baby just passed. Sounds all too familiar. The your baby measures perfect there is just no heartbeat. We gained another angel in our welcome group in heaven. I often wonder will it only be our babies that passed after implanting or will it be all the embryos we transferred. I guess one day I will know that answer but it isn't today. Today my heart breaks for the baby inside of me that no longer has a beating heart. The baby that I wanted to protect and once again I wasn't able to. My heart breaks knowing that my big girl won't be a sister. Don't take one day for granted having the children your heart longs for. Your kids may fight and drive you crazy but someone else is wishing they had that chance. 

National Infertility Awareness Week

National Infertility Week is this week. I wouldn't have even known that 5 years ago. That is when this crazy journey began. May 1, 2010 to be exact. 

Infertility is defined as trying and not getting pregnant despite having carefully timed, unprotected sex for one year. It also is getting pregnant but not being able to carry a baby to term. Secondary infertility is defined as the inability to become pregnant, or to carry a pregnancy to term, following the birth of one or more biological children. The birth of the first child does not involve any assisted reproductive technologies or fertility medications. 

As most of you know that are reading this we have secondary infertility. We have a beautiful 6 year old daughter that is our world. After 3 years of trying for a sibling we finally went to an Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE). Before for doing to the RE I went to a standard RE and thyroid and PCOS was ruled out. I just knew there was something wrong yet once again nothing was pinpointed. We waited the long 16 weeks to get into the RE and as soon as she came in she said "you have PCOS" FINALLY a diagnosis that I knew all along yet everyone was telling me no. PCOS goes beyond blood tests. There are synptoms and the condition of the ovaries themselves. I had not even had an ultrasound at that point but she knew. Sure enough at my next appointment the ultrasound showed poly cystic ovaries. David was checked and cleared so essentially our infertility tests on my shoulders. No matter how much you shouldn't blame yourself it is hard not to. Infertility can take you to dark places. Since almost 2 years ago our journey has taken many twists and turns. We started with an IUI cycle, it got canceled because of over stimulation. We did 2 more cycles both were what the infertility world calls BFN (big fat negative). Next we moved onto IVF. In February 2014 we did egg retrieval. 5 days later we transferred 2 beautiful beyond. 8 days later we found out once again BFN. This was by far the hardest because my doctor had no reason why this cycle didn't work. Everything was PERFECT. The next month we transferred 2 more embryos. 8 days later once again we waited for the call with our blood results (I didn't test before). They called and BFP! We were pregnant! Finally our dreams are coming true! We went in at 6 weeks and saw 1 heartbeat and one embryo measuring behind. It was 50/50 if there would be a heartbeat next time. We went back one week later and there was a heartbeat on baby A this time but it was slow. Baby B looked right on track. Then 2 more weeks later we found out baby A didn't make it but baby B looked great. Next appointment was great and our next appointment was scheduled for just over 16 weeks with a new doctor. We were hoping to find out what the baby was, I couldn't get the sinking feeling out of my stomach. We went in and the tech asked if we wanted to know if she could tell and we said of course. She was quiet. Kept taking measurements and I kept searching for my babies flicker on that screen. By this point I was good at reading the ultrasound or at least where to see the heart. She stopped the exam, apologized and told us she was not finding the heartbeat. She went and got the doctor and he confirmed our baby passed within 24-48 hours before our appointment. Our biggest fears were now reality. All we could do is sob. The staff was great. The doctor explained our options and we decided to deliver the next day. I won't get into that but it was November before we were able to transfer again. Once again we transferred 2 embryos and once again BFN! We had 3 more embryos left and I told our dr I wanted them all. They thawed all 3 but only 2 woke up. It resulted in a BFP and we were due to go back December 30 for our first ultrasound. On Christmas Day, 6 months exactly since we delivered our sweet boy into Heaven, as we were releasing balloons I started bleeding. I was on bed rest through the weekend and on Monday we found out I was miscarrying. I don't think we have ever been ready to bring in a new year. We decided we will do one more IVF cycle. We had testing done on both of us for genetics and everything came back normal. We still decided to proceed with PGS (pre genetic screening) on our next embryos. We did this in March of this year. I responded much better then I ever had to injections and we decided to only send 13 of our embryos to be tested (it costs a flat fee for up to 8 then so much each embryo after that). Our of the 13 embryos 9 came back normal. This is completely normal. Once again no we don't have genetic markers that make us carriers for anything. Think about it this way. Not everyone gets pregnant every month they try. It is because of so many reasons but sometimes the egg and sperm don't make an embryo that would be compatible with life and it doesn't implant. Our 4 that didn't come back normal were all not compatible with life. None would have made it out of the first trimester. 

So that is where we are right now. That is our story up until this point. I pray one of our embryos will get to go home and make a take home healthy baby. When will we transfer? That is a decision David and I will make and it will be our little secret. We have a 6 year old who misses her brother more then anyone could ever understand. It is my JOB to protect her. If we tell someone we are transferring it would be her. And we aren't telling her because if we miscarry again I want to shield her as much as possible. The longer she knows I am pregnant the harder it is for her about a loss. She didn't know about the last loss until after and it doesn't affect her like losing William. She wants to be a sister to a brother or sister that is alive. And I can tell you she is the best sister to a heavenly brother that anyone could be! We appreciate prayers as we continue our journey and pray one day we will get to share wonderful news with everyone. 

Be kind to everyone, you never know who is struggling with infertility. I also have to remind myself just because someone has been married for years or because they have an older child doesn't mean getting pregnant comes easy to them. 

If you have infertility please don't feel ashamed. You are not alone. Infertility comes in many shapes and sizes but we are all in this group together. The more we speak out the more awareness will be brought to this. And hopefully one day insurance will have to cover infertility just like they do other diseases. 

Finally something goes our way!

Through our journey to expand our family nothing has come easy. Insurance doesn't cover any infertility so we are in over $30,000 for that. Then insurance didn't cover the genetic testing on William. They also sent a denial letter when we did a preauthorization for our genetic testing. BUT when we got that letter it states that genetic testing is only covered in fetal tissue. But yet it wasn't when they denied it 6 months prior. Well I contacted the lab first and the lady was super helpful and gave me codes I could include in an appeal and said she thought an appeal would be a good idea because all they could do is tell me no that particular test wasn't covered. She said the test they run on fetal tissue is more complicated then the test they run to see if we are carriers of something genetic and for that reason insurance doesn't usually cover that particular testing. Well I filed the claim and got the decision today. THEY ARE ADJUSTING TO COVER THE TESTING! This was a $2000 charge we had to pay because they didn't. So this amount can now go towards our testing (which for some reason we haven't been billed for yet). I am over the moon excited that something went our way. And thanking The Lord for this!