First of all, let me apologize for taking so long to write a new post. I know you guys are thinking....well she is either knocked up or changed her mind about the whole darn thing. Well, neither are true. Life has just been busy lately and I haven't had a chance to really sit down and update.
So here it goes...I will start with a brief synopsis of the past month or so. I am completely healed from surgery and my post operative follow up "dye test" or HSG test was "normal"....I say that because it was "abnormal" but for us and the surgery I had it was "normal" and what we wanted to hear! After the doc was finished, I asked him how the plumbing was looking and he said that the surgery was a success and we were ready for our first attempt! I gave a big "woohoo" and he started laughing and I asked him what was so funny. He said I was probably the first patient that has ever been happen to have dysfunctional plumbing! Well doc, I went through a 2 1/2 hour surgery, 3 week recovery and a chunk of dough to have abnormal plumbing so you're darn right I'm happy!
So that was the last step to get the green light for our first IVF attempt. Oh yeah...there is one more thing..... time to "pay the man/babymaker" as they say! So Bryan and I each donated a kidney and paid the man!!! It will be worth EVERY CENT though...solo kidneys and all!!
That brings me to now...I started my Lupron injections last week...a little needle in my belly fat once a day and this week I begin my hormones!!!!! That's right....everybody watch out...Stable Mable is going to be riding on all cylinders here very soon!!! I have told those who will be coming within a 50 mile radius of me that I apologize in advance for my behavior in the next 3 weeks or so! You have to love "hormone therapy"....the point of it for the most part is to make the uterus (real estate in my terms) as "inviting" and "comfy" as possible for the little zygote so that they will want to get comfy and stay a while...you know like 9 months or so!!
Here we are... real estate is getting primed and prepped for a "not for sale" or lighted "no vacancy" sign and my nerves getting worse and worse with each day we get closer to our first attempt (which is first part of June by the way). I am trying not to get my hopes up for success on our first attempt...but it would really be nice!!!
I ask that you please continue to pray for Bryan and I and are families as we approach the day we have been working so hard for the past 5 months. We ask that you also pray for our egg donor and her family. Pray for her body, her health, and her heart. Pray that she will respond well and have a successful stimulation. Pray for me and my body as begin preparing my body for a healthy pregnancy and healthy baby (or babies as many people are already convinced of)!
So I have my Valium packed (provided by MD/protocol for transfer) and a cigarette for after (only kidding) lol!!
Thank you for all your continued support and prayers.
In his love and trusting Him,
Miranda...and Baby Daddy too
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Operation "Virginia" Renovation completed
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again; Rejoice" Philippians 4:4
So I had full intentions of submitting another blog before my surgery but clearly that didn't happen.
Well, as you can see 'Operation Virginia Renovation' has been completed and I came home this morning after a lovely, overnight, but unexpected stay at hospital.
So the original surgical plan was to perform laparoscopic, however when Dr. Schnorr tried to perform laparoscopic he was unable to visualize my fallopian tubes. Therefore, he had to give me a lovely low abdominal incision similar to a C-section incision. It's nice that its low enough that it won't be visible when I put on my bikini this summer! HAHAHA, that's funny right???
The surgery lasted longer than expected, of course I remember nothing! Dr. Schnorr said that I have stage 4 endometriosis, that my left fallopian tube was also dilated, and that I had a ton a of scar tissue from the endo. So he ended up cleaning out of the endometriosis and disconnected both fallopian tubes!
On the bright side, my uterus looked fine to grow a baby. Thank goodness for that!!! So my "minor" procedure became more complicated and I am out of commission for longer than I originally expected!
Now that "Virginia" has had a complete overhaul, we will have 2 months to allow for healing and then proceed with our first transfer cycle hopefully by summer!!
I will continue to update!!
Hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for all the prayers!!
Miranda :)
So I had full intentions of submitting another blog before my surgery but clearly that didn't happen.
Well, as you can see 'Operation Virginia Renovation' has been completed and I came home this morning after a lovely, overnight, but unexpected stay at hospital.
So the original surgical plan was to perform laparoscopic, however when Dr. Schnorr tried to perform laparoscopic he was unable to visualize my fallopian tubes. Therefore, he had to give me a lovely low abdominal incision similar to a C-section incision. It's nice that its low enough that it won't be visible when I put on my bikini this summer! HAHAHA, that's funny right???
The surgery lasted longer than expected, of course I remember nothing! Dr. Schnorr said that I have stage 4 endometriosis, that my left fallopian tube was also dilated, and that I had a ton a of scar tissue from the endo. So he ended up cleaning out of the endometriosis and disconnected both fallopian tubes!
On the bright side, my uterus looked fine to grow a baby. Thank goodness for that!!! So my "minor" procedure became more complicated and I am out of commission for longer than I originally expected!
Now that "Virginia" has had a complete overhaul, we will have 2 months to allow for healing and then proceed with our first transfer cycle hopefully by summer!!
I will continue to update!!
Hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for all the prayers!!
Miranda :)
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Really God??
February 20, 2013 Really God?
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze." Isaiah 43:2
You know the saying "when it rains, it pours"? Yeah, well, I feel as if we are in the middle of a MONSOON and my umbrella is broken!!
So we had more testing today with Dr. Schnorr....well I had more testing...me and "Virginia" (that's what I'm going to name my plumbing and lady parts). So the testing consisted of a trial transfer and an HSG test. The trial transfer is basically a dress rehearsal for the actual embryo transfer and the HSG test is when they insert dye into virginia to make sure that my fallopian tubes and uterus all are behaving themselves. The trial transfer went very well...the catheter passed without any difficulty and really wasn't uncomfortable. Now time for HSG test. Now I had this same procedure 2 years ago and it was normal so was thinking "oh, no biggie, it will fine this time too and we can keep trucking along". WRONGIE DONGIE!! This was more uncomfortable that I remember and after we were done I knew why. One of my tubes is blocked! Well, that's just fabulous!! You might ask, well what difference does that make, your plumbing doesn't work anyways, why do you need your tubes to be open? Well, apparently our tubes produce this mucous similar to "saliva" (docs words not mine) and if the tubes are blocked, it can spill over into uterus preventing implantation of embryo. Greeeeaaattt!!!
When the doc told me what it showed and the only way to fix it was laparoscopic surgery, I thought I was going to fall off the table. My body suddenly went numb and I felt as if I was going to pass out. This cannot be happening I thought. You have got to be kidding me. Really God? I don't know if I can handle this. Is all this going to be worth it in the end? Are we going to get our dream? There were a million things running through my mind. I don't really remember walking back to where Bryan was and back to the MD office. That is all a blur.
So we go back to meet with doc again so we can get low down and what all this means and where we go from here. He explains everything...tells us that our pregnancy rate is very low with IVF if we don't fix this. Also, the IVF program, ATTAIN, that we are trying to get approved for will not approve us until this is fixed. Ok...so we fix it I guess. Will insurance pay for it? Doc tells us he has surgery date available March 12. Meanwhile, insurance gals are checking into preauthorization and thankfully, insurance will pay for it. Well, finally, some good news I suppose. So doc explained that surgery would open up tube or he can just take it out altogether. Ha, it's not like I need it anyways, right?
So surgery for me it is...
It is an outpatient procedure done laparoscopic which means I will just have a few little puncture sites in my belly. The recovery time is a couple days which is good. I have never had any surgery to speak of so I'm a little nervous but my dream of being a Mommy is way bigger than my fear!! I am so very fortunate, though, that I work with a FABULOUS office and a great group of gals! My bosses are so very understanding of our journey and are being very helpful during this difficult time for us. They will never know what their love and support is meaning to us right now.
So, surgery is scheduled for March 12. Doc is confident that we will be successful once this is taken care of. We have to wait 2 months after surgery to begin first IVF cycle so in the grand scheme of things we are still on track time wise. Just ran into a little hurdle.
We continue to appreciate and covet all your prayers as we chase our dream and continue this journey. I will continue to update as I can! Just continue the prayers that the surgery will go well, that our journey will go smoothly from here on out. Also, we ask that you pray for our egg donor as we do everyday. Pray for her, her body, her family, and her willingness to give such a wonderful and selfless gift so that couples like Bryan and I can be Mommy and Daddy.
We love you all!
Until next time.
In his love and with his guidance,
Miranda
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze." Isaiah 43:2
You know the saying "when it rains, it pours"? Yeah, well, I feel as if we are in the middle of a MONSOON and my umbrella is broken!!
So we had more testing today with Dr. Schnorr....well I had more testing...me and "Virginia" (that's what I'm going to name my plumbing and lady parts). So the testing consisted of a trial transfer and an HSG test. The trial transfer is basically a dress rehearsal for the actual embryo transfer and the HSG test is when they insert dye into virginia to make sure that my fallopian tubes and uterus all are behaving themselves. The trial transfer went very well...the catheter passed without any difficulty and really wasn't uncomfortable. Now time for HSG test. Now I had this same procedure 2 years ago and it was normal so was thinking "oh, no biggie, it will fine this time too and we can keep trucking along". WRONGIE DONGIE!! This was more uncomfortable that I remember and after we were done I knew why. One of my tubes is blocked! Well, that's just fabulous!! You might ask, well what difference does that make, your plumbing doesn't work anyways, why do you need your tubes to be open? Well, apparently our tubes produce this mucous similar to "saliva" (docs words not mine) and if the tubes are blocked, it can spill over into uterus preventing implantation of embryo. Greeeeaaattt!!!
When the doc told me what it showed and the only way to fix it was laparoscopic surgery, I thought I was going to fall off the table. My body suddenly went numb and I felt as if I was going to pass out. This cannot be happening I thought. You have got to be kidding me. Really God? I don't know if I can handle this. Is all this going to be worth it in the end? Are we going to get our dream? There were a million things running through my mind. I don't really remember walking back to where Bryan was and back to the MD office. That is all a blur.
So we go back to meet with doc again so we can get low down and what all this means and where we go from here. He explains everything...tells us that our pregnancy rate is very low with IVF if we don't fix this. Also, the IVF program, ATTAIN, that we are trying to get approved for will not approve us until this is fixed. Ok...so we fix it I guess. Will insurance pay for it? Doc tells us he has surgery date available March 12. Meanwhile, insurance gals are checking into preauthorization and thankfully, insurance will pay for it. Well, finally, some good news I suppose. So doc explained that surgery would open up tube or he can just take it out altogether. Ha, it's not like I need it anyways, right?
So surgery for me it is...
It is an outpatient procedure done laparoscopic which means I will just have a few little puncture sites in my belly. The recovery time is a couple days which is good. I have never had any surgery to speak of so I'm a little nervous but my dream of being a Mommy is way bigger than my fear!! I am so very fortunate, though, that I work with a FABULOUS office and a great group of gals! My bosses are so very understanding of our journey and are being very helpful during this difficult time for us. They will never know what their love and support is meaning to us right now.
So, surgery is scheduled for March 12. Doc is confident that we will be successful once this is taken care of. We have to wait 2 months after surgery to begin first IVF cycle so in the grand scheme of things we are still on track time wise. Just ran into a little hurdle.
We continue to appreciate and covet all your prayers as we chase our dream and continue this journey. I will continue to update as I can! Just continue the prayers that the surgery will go well, that our journey will go smoothly from here on out. Also, we ask that you pray for our egg donor as we do everyday. Pray for her, her body, her family, and her willingness to give such a wonderful and selfless gift so that couples like Bryan and I can be Mommy and Daddy.
We love you all!
Until next time.
In his love and with his guidance,
Miranda
Friday, February 15, 2013
And the journey begins...
In the beginning...So here goes nothing. First of all, I want to start out by thanking each and every one of you for all your support and love as Bryan and I begin this journey. Bryan and I were married on a rainy Saturday in December of 2009. It was the happiest day of my life and I could not wait to start my life with him. I knew that God had saved me just for me and him for me! He was and is everything that I prayed for in a spouse for so long and God answered that prayer. I say that because I know that God answers prayers...however, I sometimes feel he has “muted” me when it comes to my prayer to have a baby. I know that is not the case and his timing is not always our timing. My good friend, Katie Bigby told me once while I was venting that our dream wasn’t happening as quickly as we thought it should and she says “Miranda, you know our God doesn’t wear a watch”. That is so very true and I find myself telling others that during there times of “waiting”, but when it’s happening to you and your dream isn’t coming true, you tend to ignore your own advice and say “come on, God, I want it now”!
So, Bryan and I started “trying” not long after we got married and when I say “trying” I mean we weren’t doing anything to prevent it. Yeah, Bryan was still in school and we were newlyweds but I knew I wasn’t getting any younger (I was 30 years old at this point....almost 31) and that soon my eggs would be “deviled” and ready to be “pickled in a jar with some vinegar”. Apparently, I offended these said eggs because thats exactly what they did!! So, Bryan and I did everything people say...take your temp, throw your legs in the air after “homework” (that will the term I use for intercourse) just so we are clear. Anyways, pee on a stick, use these cups after “homework” to keep everything contained and right where it needs to be as my pickled egg made its way to the homeland! Well, none of that worked.
So, I consulted with my OBGYN and we did a few procedures and some testing through her practice so that insurance would pick up some of the costs (we had no fertility benefits). Bryan did his “deed” as well and all swimmers assumed the proper position and were all swimming upstream. There were a few abnormalities with me but nothing earth shattering....or so we thought.
The above mentioned was all done between 2010-2011. We decided we were tired of tests and “we aren’t sure why you can’t conceive” blah blah blah.
So here we are 2013...THE YEAR OF THE AYER BABY!!
January 31, 2013...The day that changed everything...
The day came for our appointment with the fertility specialists. The meeting started out very positive with the review of our previous testing, small chit chat, blah blah blah. The doctor then decided he wanted to do an ultrasound to get a idea of what he was dealing with..."plumbing and real estate wise". Well that's where it went south...literally and figuratively. We were informed that I had pretty significant endometriosis which had scarred my ovaries. What does that mean? Well, remember earlier when I talked about how I joked that I would be all "dried up" and "pickled"? Yeah, I am dried up and pickled. My ovaries that is....so what if any eggs that I had would not be useful to producing a baby. My uterus, however, appeared to look fine with the exception of a fibroid which the MD didn't feel would pose any problems. So I can't build the baby but I possibly have the real estate where it can reside for 9 months? Fabulous...what's next then doc??
Well, the doc was nice and honest with us...told us our only option would be to do In Vitro using donor eggs. Well, this is not what we signed up for when we walked through those double doors but for some reason this is the cards we are dealt.
So we then meet with a nurse and financial consultant to discuss options, etc. Most of those conversations were a blur for the days that followed but the fog has since cleared and we have decided this is the journey we are on and are buckled up and ready for the ride! Fortunately for Bryan and I, we have very supportive and understanding work families that shared in our heartache the day after our appointment and after seeing how "well put together" we both were decided to send us home so that we could be with each other as we continued to try to understand what we had been told. And also in a way to mourn our child that we had not conceived yet.
We are now going into 3 weeks since the day that changed everything. Bryan has completed his preliminary testing, I have my appt. next week (more on that on next post), and finances are tentatively available (more of that to come on next post too), and donor has been selected (yep, you got it...more of that to come too).
I didn't want to overwhelm with our first post with everything so we are taking "baby steps" lol starting this blog. That and the fact I have never done this before should make these blog posts clear as mud!!
So until next time.
In his love,
Miranda
So, Bryan and I started “trying” not long after we got married and when I say “trying” I mean we weren’t doing anything to prevent it. Yeah, Bryan was still in school and we were newlyweds but I knew I wasn’t getting any younger (I was 30 years old at this point....almost 31) and that soon my eggs would be “deviled” and ready to be “pickled in a jar with some vinegar”. Apparently, I offended these said eggs because thats exactly what they did!! So, Bryan and I did everything people say...take your temp, throw your legs in the air after “homework” (that will the term I use for intercourse) just so we are clear. Anyways, pee on a stick, use these cups after “homework” to keep everything contained and right where it needs to be as my pickled egg made its way to the homeland! Well, none of that worked.
So, I consulted with my OBGYN and we did a few procedures and some testing through her practice so that insurance would pick up some of the costs (we had no fertility benefits). Bryan did his “deed” as well and all swimmers assumed the proper position and were all swimming upstream. There were a few abnormalities with me but nothing earth shattering....or so we thought.
The above mentioned was all done between 2010-2011. We decided we were tired of tests and “we aren’t sure why you can’t conceive” blah blah blah.
So here we are 2013...THE YEAR OF THE AYER BABY!!
January 31, 2013...The day that changed everything...
The day came for our appointment with the fertility specialists. The meeting started out very positive with the review of our previous testing, small chit chat, blah blah blah. The doctor then decided he wanted to do an ultrasound to get a idea of what he was dealing with..."plumbing and real estate wise". Well that's where it went south...literally and figuratively. We were informed that I had pretty significant endometriosis which had scarred my ovaries. What does that mean? Well, remember earlier when I talked about how I joked that I would be all "dried up" and "pickled"? Yeah, I am dried up and pickled. My ovaries that is....so what if any eggs that I had would not be useful to producing a baby. My uterus, however, appeared to look fine with the exception of a fibroid which the MD didn't feel would pose any problems. So I can't build the baby but I possibly have the real estate where it can reside for 9 months? Fabulous...what's next then doc??
Well, the doc was nice and honest with us...told us our only option would be to do In Vitro using donor eggs. Well, this is not what we signed up for when we walked through those double doors but for some reason this is the cards we are dealt.
So we then meet with a nurse and financial consultant to discuss options, etc. Most of those conversations were a blur for the days that followed but the fog has since cleared and we have decided this is the journey we are on and are buckled up and ready for the ride! Fortunately for Bryan and I, we have very supportive and understanding work families that shared in our heartache the day after our appointment and after seeing how "well put together" we both were decided to send us home so that we could be with each other as we continued to try to understand what we had been told. And also in a way to mourn our child that we had not conceived yet.
We are now going into 3 weeks since the day that changed everything. Bryan has completed his preliminary testing, I have my appt. next week (more on that on next post), and finances are tentatively available (more of that to come on next post too), and donor has been selected (yep, you got it...more of that to come too).
I didn't want to overwhelm with our first post with everything so we are taking "baby steps" lol starting this blog. That and the fact I have never done this before should make these blog posts clear as mud!!
So until next time.
In his love,
Miranda
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