The New Year!

Here's to hoping that the new year will bring us better luck. As some of you may have heard we tried another round of IVF in November with no success. We now have 2 more embroys frozen that we are going to use this year. When we decide on the date we will let everyone know so that the prayers can be said on our behalf.

We hope that all is well with you and yours this hoilday season and hope that blessings will continue through out the following year.

Sad News 7/20/10

When we went to the doctors on Friday the 16th to find out how things were going. We found out that there is no fetus growing. It's what they call an embryotic pregnancy. The embryo attached and was growing, but no baby is. As Kenny put it: "The lights are on, but no one is home." We had a good cry and are waiting for the miscarriage to occur, if it doesn't do something in a few days then the doctors will give me a drug to help it along, if that doesn't flush out whats there, the I'll have to get a "DNC"

Luckily we have 5 frozen embryos that we can still use. But of course it cost money and we are still getting bills from this cycle. It will only cost just over 3,000$ with meds to use the frozen embryos. So we may have to wait until next March when we get our income tax returns.
We shall see how finances go till then and maybe we can get some more donations (hint, hint) to help along the way. I think the earliest we would be able to try again would be October. They want my body to "rest" before we go again.

June 30th, 2010

On June 13th we were able to get 17 eggs from our wonderful donor Elise. 11 of them matured, 7 fertilzed! On the 16th we took the best two and transfered them to me. Now it's the 30th and the wait is over! It worked the HCG levels are at 293 (anything over 100 is good).

Thank you all for the prayers and donations, which there are never enough of, the helped soo much!

Next step is to see in 2 1/2 weeks with an ultrasound the location of the sacs and maybe hear heart beats.

Love you all! Doing a Happy Dance!

Jeannette and Kenny

Busy life

For the last two weeks or more I feel like life has just been crazy busy. I think some in part trying to fit in as much face time as possible with my brother John's family while they were here visiting. I must say we loved having them here and were sorry to see them go. I then realized that I failed to update everyone on how things are going for us on the invitro progress.

Let's see, When the donor went in for her first apointment the meds weren't there, turns out that the pharmacy company called her and because she didn't know who they were, outside company, she told them she didn't know what was up with it. So they didn't deliver it directly to her and cancled the order. Luckily the clinic had some on hand that they shuffled some around until our order could get to the clinic. No biggie, but it seemed to a rocky start to begin with.

When our donor went back into the clinic for her first follow up she wasn't stimulating as quickly as anticipaterd, so they upped the dose of drugs. This continued to be the pattern for the next two apointments. Because it's been a slower stimulation, (Which has nothing to do with her personally, or the quality of the her eggs!) with drugs increasing every time, inturn means we pay for more meds. The folical's are finally maturing!

The folicals were at 14mm on Tuesday. They are hoping that on Thurday they should be closer to the 18-19mm mark that is needed. Looks like it will be a weekend retrival. Then in turn means the transfer will happen on June 17-18th. We are keeping our fingers crossed and praying hard.

For those of you who would like to join us in a special fast this Sunday the 13th we would love all the extra prayers to help us along.

Some questions answered

To answer some questions that we have been asked:

We applied for a loan (for what we hoped would be enough) and were approved. The loan was suppose to cover most of the expenses (although we did know of a few expenses not covered in the IVF fee). However, the further we get into the process, the more we're learning that most of the IVF fee is going to the clinic/Doctors and will not cover a few necessary procedures and most tests that they require. This was about the same time we found out that our insurance will not cover any of the expenses (we all know how often insurance companies change their minds on stuff). It's a good thing that it's open enrollment time.

For those that have donated (in the past - present - and future), that money has - and will be - used to cover these expenses that have been a bit of a surprise to us. Without the help from our family and friends, this extra cost (meaning burden) would be a lot worse than it is. We can not say how much has been donated in all, but the extra costs that we have been able to pay for is over a few thousand dollars so far.

Tweek it a bit

So I found out just the other day that I hit the jackpot..not really. The clinic had on "my calendar" that I was to start some shots on the 24th of May. Turns out that was in error. I don't have to do any pre-transfer shots! Looks like it will just be the post-transfer shots I'll be needing. Those are the killer ones anyway, so I guess it's not such a big jackpot after all.

All in!

There's no backing out now! We offically signed for our loan and all the release papers at the clinic.

There won't be much else until the 24th of May.

PS Anyone wanting to use paypal for contrabutions/donations can with the paypal link at the top of the page (it's just a cute picture of a Mom and baby).

Here we go!

Here we are about to embark on a new adventure.

When I was 17 I was diagnosed with AML Leukemia. I had a Bone Marrow Transplant on December 31, 1992. Everything went beautifully and I haven't had any issues since. The one side effect is that the chemotherapy that I received killed all my eggs and put my body into a early menopausal state. Thus making it so I'm not able to conceive on my own, but I'm healthy enough to be able to carry a baby.

That's why we have decided to try In Vitro Fertilization. In-vitro is very expensive, making this the reason wyh we are reached out to our family members, asking for help to accomplish this goal.

We have already done all of the preliminary tests and consultations. Everything is set in place and we have selected a donor. I've already started taking estrogen and prenatal vitamins then I will start with the shots on May 24th.

Our target date is June 11th! So if all goes as planned my due date will be March 1, 2011! It's weird that I have due date and I'm not even pregnant.

We are really optimistic about this whole adventure. For those of you that weren't able to contribute we know your prayers are with us too.