The last year of our lives.... recapped.

Every day we said "we should really be writing all this stuff down" ... every time something good or bad happened ... but we kept putting it off. So here we are 1 year into trying to get pregnant and we're finally going to start documenting our journey.


October 2007
It was early October when we first headed to Fairfax Cryobank to pick up "the goods." We had finally made the difficult decision on which donor to use and now it was time to meet him! Since our fertility doctor was in DC and our 1.8 billion potential babies were all in Virginia, we decided it would be best to personally transport them to the doctors office. So we drove out to the cryobank to pick up what we expected to be a small container. Sperm are small. So the container that holds them should be small too, right? Wrong. Picture your typical missle and then picture bigger. Now picture us carrying this large vessel-like-object around M Street in Georgetown! For those that don't know M street, it would be like carrying a similar object around Times Square in NYC!

Well we got the goods delivered, although this is hardly how we imagined our first outing with our babies! Now if only the rest of our baby making could be as fun as this day was :)


November 2007
First IUI ... unsuccesful. Almost positive we did not time this right.


December 2007
Second IUI ... unsuccesful. Again - almost positive we did not time this right. This time we tried using Proge.sterone although it didn't change the outcome of this attempt.


January 2008
M is now living in NJ and J is still living in DC. This month J had to inseminate on her own. But this may have been the change we needed (along with the addition of Clo.mid) because this time we got a positive pregnancy test! J was home for the weekend and we got to take the test together. It was completely unbelievable when we saw the pregnancy test turn positive. We thought it was too good to be true. And guess what, we were right. The b/w looked good the first check, but 2 days later... the beta numbers had dropped. It was a chemical pregnancy. BLAH. The only good news was that J responded well to the Clo.mid and she can get pregnant! The only side affect she had to the Clo.mid was some hot flashes which were entertaining to watch as she began stripping articles of clothing.


February 2008
It's so sad when a month is wasted. There's really no feeling like it - when you realize that when your eggs ovulate and look for sperm they will not find any to become fertilized with. Instead they will shrivel up and die. This is what February was for us because even though we were not pregnant any longer our beta numbers refused to go to zero ... and until that happened we could not try another IUI. So we sat ... waiting... impatiently.


March 2008
This was an interesting cycle. Not only did our doctor tell us we could not attempt an IUI this month but he also informed J that she should go on the pill. Thats right, my les.bian wife that was trying to get pregnant was now on birth control for the first time in her life! Ironic isn't it? Our doctor had high hopes that the BC would help to get rid of the cyst that had formed ... we think due to the Clo.mid. End of month proved our doctor to be wrong as the cyst was still there taunting us.


April 2008
Well we finally got to try to get pregnant again this month. It was Spring and there was a promise of new life ... and we had especially high hopes. It was our first IUI with our new fertility doctor in NJ and he had informed us of a little something called the Trigger Shot. WHAT?! What is this shot and how did our other doctor fail to mention this to us!? Why were we inseminating based on a whim and an ovulation stick?! It had always been such a crap shoot to figure out when to inseminate and now with the knowledge of the trigger shot we could know within 36 hours of when to inseminate. We finally felt we had a chance to get pregnant. After using clo.mid for 5 days we went in to see how many follicles had formed. We went for a u/s and it showed 8 follicles too small to use just yet. We were instructed to return in a few days once the follicles had grown a bit. When we went back for another u/s we were looking forward to hearing some great news, so we were a little sad when our doctor informed us that none of the eggs had grown and our ovaries appeared to be ummm... resting. Yes, taking a nap. So he had us repeat the Clo.mid even though this was not something we even thought was possible. The next week we went and found that we had some mature follicles! YAY- once again we were hopeful and geared up for our insemination.


May 2008
It's Mothers Day and today is the day that we can do our Pregnancy Test. Once our eggs finally woke up and grew to a respectable size the rest of the insemination went perfectly. Plus it's Mothers Day - it's meant to be, right?! So we wake up and take the test fully expecting a Yes. Again, it's Mothers Day, it just HAS to be positive. Negative. (Yes, you read correctly, Negative on Mothers Day). Enter mexican restaurant and Coronas.

The next day we tell our doctor it was negative but they ask us to come in for b/w to confirm so we do. Only to find out that we ARE in fact pregnant. However the numbers were a little low (12.1 on 5/12). At this point we are cautiously optimistic but are figuring it will end up as another chemical. Later that week they had more than tripled which was great news! (80.0 on 5/15). And by Saturday 5/17 the beta had reached 258! We waited one week before our next round of b/w and our betas had reach 4166 on 5/23! All signs were good, we even got to see the baby gestational sac and carried the u/s picture around with us like it was an actual baby. We were too excited to keep it a secret and told basically everyone we knew that we were 7 weeks pregnant. Yeah, it was a little early to tell people, but all signs were good, and we already had 1 m/c, so we had to be ok this time. After we had told pretty much everyone that we were expecting we went in for our appointment to see the baby's heartbeat. There was none. We waited one week and went in again and this time there was a heartbeat! Our prayers had been answered! But then the doctor told us the heartbeat was too slow to be happy. The following week there was no heartbeat and our dr didn't have to say anything we were already unhappy.

Just to recap that cycle in case you couldn't keep up: ovaries "resting", ovaries made eggs, inseminate, negative pregnancy test, positive pregnancy test, numbers too low, numbers look good, see the pea sized baby, no heartbeat, heartbeat but too slow, no hearbeat. Sound like a rollercoaster? Because it sure felt like one!


July 2008
We let everyone know that we had miscarried and decided to let nature take its course ...
After 2 weeks of heavy, heavy (scary heavy) bleeding it finally stopped. There were definitely phone calls to the doctor in this time to make sure that the amount of blood we were seeing was normal (and safe). Then it finally stopped. We figured it had all passed, but after a u/s we were told there was still more to come out. Again, we think nature will do its thing. So 2 weeks later began more heavy bleeding. This time it all has to be all out for sure! Doctor appointment, u/s, still more to come out - sound familiar? Yeah, except this time we were told that we pretty much had to get a D&C ... because nature had clearly not been taking it's course.

On July 14th, J went in for her first sugery ever and her first anesthesia ever. All went well but the real recovery was the emotional one.


August 2008
We thought we could try another IUI this month since J was completely recovered from the D&C, but when we asked our doctor they told us that following any surgery it was required that we wait 90 days before doing anything otherwise insurance would not cover it. Seriously? We did not know this - it really would have been nice to know this. So we called our insurance company to verify and they told us that they had never heard of that and it was not true. So we called our doctor back and they assured us that it was true. So we called the insurance company back and got the same answer. At this point we are so confused so we tell our doctor to talk to our insurance company with us on the line. The conversation went something like this:
cig.na - "I understand there is some confusion with J's coverage"
doctor - "No, she doesn't have coverage because of the global code"
cig.na - " Ohhhhh, the global code! Yeah, she has to wait 90 days."
doctor - "ok bye."
J - "WHAT THE (%&$!!!!"

Maybe you could have mentioned this "global code" 4 weeks ago instead of wasting my time calling cig.na and the dr 400 times?!

At the end of the day we knew we had to wait 90 days - which meant October 14th.


September 2008
Helloooooooooo coronas and college football. We decided that if we weren't pregnant or even trying to get pregnant, we were at least going to enjoy your time off.


October 2008
IVF process begins and this is where we start blogging in real time.