Hello again!

Hey Everyone!

Life has been pretty crazy this last month that I haven't had the chance to write much. Nothing new on the foster update except that we go to our orientation on the 25th of this month. As for the other side of my life, it has been getting close to recital at the dance studio so we have been doing costume checks, private lesson, makeup lessons ect. I started watching my newest nephew during the day! All I can say he is super sweet and cuddly and it makes me yearn for my own little one even more. As for right now my life is pretty darn good! I have many more adventures to come and I will keep you all posted :)

A crazy week!

Oh boy! What a week we have had. Found out Jen has a cyst on her ovary (very common) which means we have to put our transfer off a month, had to make a really big decision, had our house broken into and to top it off had to clean up my nephew who got sick everywhere! What can I say? I love every bit of my crazy little life ;).

Okay, here's the really big decision we had to make, we have decided to put our transfer off for more than one month. The summer seems to be a busy schedule for everyone with all the vacations and fun we have which makes it really hard to make the drive to Seattle all the time for appointments and the transfer. When we transfer the embryos, we have no idea what day it will be until the last minute. We want to be fair to everyone, we are putting our transfer off until August and discuss it again then. Emotionally I am excited for a break too!

My husband and I have also been looking into foster to adopt. We will attend an orientation in June. I'm very excited! We will be posting our foster to adopt journey here too. If anyone has any insight on foster to adopt I'd love to hear from you! We have a long journey ahead of us but I am ready for "motherhood".

Here we go again!

We are officially onto the next (and last) cycle! We are now waiting for the clinic to call to schedule an early cycle ultrasound to make sure everything looks good. Nothing exciting happens for a few more weeks but we have reached the beginning again :)

I feel as if my head is spinning in many different directions right now. I'm excited to be doing it all over again but also nervous because I know this will be our final try to become parents via surrogacy. Please be thinking positive thoughts with me as we try again on this crazy journey.

Stay tuned!!!

nothing exciting yet ;)

Hey everyone!
Just a quick little update so I don't keep you guys hanging too long, Jen got her period last week so that's good! Now we wait until next month when she gets it again and we can go off of that for the transfer. Yay!! In the meantime I get to enjoy my new little nephew that was born last week. So cute and cuddly. I also had my first post-cancer check up and everything looked good but we still have to wait for the results to come back. Hang with us for some exciting action coming soon! Hopefully!

On to the next round!

As you know we had our phone consult to discuss the next transfer. Everything is ready to go! Since we've done this before, I felt as it was much easier to pick our embryos. Out of the six choices we had, we decided to go with AE166. Now that that the embryos are picked we wait for Jen to start her cycle again and go with a "very little med" cycle which should put us down for an early to mid May transfer with two embryos again!!!  We are excited to do it again but I think we may take this cycle with a more cautious attitude.

Now I will leave you an adorable picture of the cutest kids ever! I'm so lucky to have such an awesome job taking care of these cuties. Jennifer does produce some pretty wonderful kiddos (but I'm sure they take after their really cool auntie :p)!

Hey there!

So Jennifer is slacking again ;) she was supposed to update you all on everything. That's ok, I have her back! So yesterday Jennifer went in for an ultrasound to determine if she has successfully passed all of the pregnancy. Everything looked good and nothing was left and her blood work was back at 0. Jen is doing good and said it wasn't as bad as she had thought is was going to be.

So what happens next you ask? Well it just so happens that we have a phone meeting tomorrow morning to discuss the next cycle. We already know that we will be doing donated embryos and hopefully another natural cycle. Not too sure about the time line yet but I guess we will be finding out tomorrow! I will update sometime tomorrow to let you all know the details :) Hopefully we still have some readers out there!

:(

Well the ultrasound today went as expected and the pregnancy is not viable. The sack did not show anymore growth. Jennifer will let it pass naturally. We were disappointed but not surprised since we had a feeling it wasn't going to go our way this time. We do plan on doing it again with just donor embryos as soon as we get the green light so please hang with us to soon read up on our next adventure that will hopefully turn out to be our final and successful time with all of this craziness! Hey, we like to look on the bright side and say our life is never boring ;) Thank you for all of your support. We love our readers!

Damn!

Nothing in our life is ever easy! Oh well... we had our ultrasound today as you may know but it didn't go the way we had hoped. We saw one sack with a yolk all good but no fetal pole and the sack measured 5w6days when it should be measuring 7 weeks. Most likely it won't be a viable pregnancy. We go back for another ultrasound next wednesday and we will know for sure. Man this sucks! We will be trying again if this doesn't work out. I will be a mother someday!

ultrasound coming! update...

Just wanted to update everyone and let you all know that we scheduled the ultrasound for next Tuesday the 19th at 10:15. I'm so excited! I hope everything will be good news!


UPDATE: We had to change the day of the ultrasound to wednesday the 20th at 1:30 ;)

Blame it on the chemo brain and the preggo brain!

Hey all of our wonderful readers! Thanks for all of the wonderful encouragement! You guys are amazing!! Sorry to keep you waiting (read the title for a good enough reason for now) Now the news you've been waiting for! Jennifer's numbers didn't quite double but they did increase to 200. The doctors were not concerned what so ever since Sometimes with frozen embryos they can be slow to produce hcg. Ahh... relief? of course not! I googled until my fingertips were numb only to find out that it is really nothing to worry about ;) Let's just say it's going to be a long 9 months! Sorry Jen!

Everything seems to be progressing nicely but won't find out more until the week of the 18th when we will get our first ultrasound. I'm letting Jennifer pick the date that works best for her schedule so we aren't sure of the exact day yet but we promise to let you know as soon as Jen books it.

I'm starting to learn (thank you readers!) that this pregnancy is a step closer to my dream and I don't want to be so uneasy all the time that I miss out on such a wonderful thing so I am going to take it all one day at a time and be happy for each day we get to experience this pregnancy. I feel that I am more prepared for whatever the destiny of this pregnancy becomes good or bad. One day at a time, one day at a time, one day at a time...

Results are in take 2...

That's right... she's preggo!! OMG! The nurse called with a fantastic number of, wait for it... 131!! yippee! Still too early to really know if it's one or two in there but Jen and I feel as if it's one. She goes back in on Saturday to make sure the numbers have doubled. This all feels so weird and unreal! Okay, confession time, we may have been expecting a positive beta today, yes she tested the last few days ;) and they of course came back positive. Here are the beauties:

 I don't know how I really feel about this. I want to get excited but I don't know how. I am nervous that things may not continue on the way I want them to. I have never carried a baby past 7 weeks and even though I am not the one carrying it, nervousness is all I know how to feel! Please tell me things get easier!

Oh the Waiting!

I can't take it! The waiting is killing me this time. I thought I would be calmer this time since I felt that way through the transfer, but no! Everyday I think to myself, "I'm not going to think about it. I'm going to just wait and see what happens." I am freaking out! I want Jennifer to take a test so if it continues to be negative I will be more prepared for negative blood work. I will have time to accept the outcome and not be so shocked. Her thoughts on the whole thing are that if it's negative she doesn't want me to know because she wants to protect me, I guess that's what big sisters do! I love her for that but I NEED TO KNOW!!

Transfer Day Take 2!

Well today was the day for our second attempt at transferring beautiful little embryos into their cozy home for the next nine months (fingers crossed!). Everything went as well as expected. Here's a little recap of the day:

The goodie basket I made for Jen complete with "Implanters" peanuts, "Skor" candy bar, "Success" rice, "Mission" dip, a few items that play on words for twins, and last but the most important "Lucky Charms".

                                               Wearing our green and yellow for good luck!

               Waiting for the doctor and chatting it up with the very friendly and humorous embryologist.

                                                   Our little embryos! Aren't they beauties?

                                               A view from the petri dish before the transfer!

                                                There they are snuggled up for the long haul.

Okay, now we wait. On January 31st we go in for a blood test to see if they decided to stick around but of course there may or may not be home pregnancy tests taken ;) So nervous!

Happy Dance!!

I just wanted to update everyone to say that I am so happy! Why you ask? I finished my last cancer treatment yesterday and am currently in remission now! Happy dance with me! 2013 is going to be a great year!

Oh my!

Hey everyone! I'm so glad to see Jen has filled you in on our latest updates. Thanks Jen ;). I believe it's my turn to fill you in on what's gone on the last day or so. Sunday we went in for another ultrasound and bloodwork. The follicle was measuring 16mm and needed to be around 18mm, her estrogen needed to be above 150 but wasn't quite there but her lining was perfect! Back in Monday she went. Again her follicle was not much bigger and her bloodwork came back at 113.....err! Tuesday she went back again. This time everything looked amazing! Follicle was at 20mm, estrogen was at 190! Way to go Jen! So we got the green light to give her a shot in the gut which will release her eggs. Here's where it gets crazy....ready? We transfer the embryos this coming Monday! Oh my! I can't believe we made it here again! I'm feeling every emotion you can think of! Ahhh! Okay, breath! So excited! So nervous!

Small Update

I wanted to stick to my promise to Brenna and keep everyone updated. So last Thursday I went back to the fertility clinic for another ultrasound (it's kind of bizarre getting ultrasounds when there is no baby to see). Anyways, the lining looked good and thick, but there wasn't a follicle yet. The doctor seemed a little surprised, but she schedule me back for another appointment on Sunday morning. She did say the transfer is looking like next weekend. Fingers crossed! I will try and update after the game (Go Hawks!) on Sunday. Enjoy the weekend!!

Hi Again!

It’s me Jennifer and yes I am finally blogging again! Although you can thank Brenna, she has been harping on me almost daily. I haven’t been on since the failed transfer and I am truly sorry, but thankfully Brenna has been keeping you all updated. My family had a wonderful and as always very chaotic holiday.

Let me explain a little about my lack of blogging. Not only are three kids a handful but the failed cycle sucked! I think going into round one we fully expected everything to work out, I mean why wouldn’t it? I had three successful pregnancies, Brenna deserved it, and all my numbers were off the charts. What?? Doesn’t work that way? Remember during my 2 week wait I was in FL, well the entire time I felt like crap so naturally I was pregnant. I think deep down I knew it didn’t happen, but I wasn’t fully willing to admit it. It was so heartbreaking to see the look on Brenna and Jesse’s faces when the results came in, I felt horrible. And yes, I have been told “it’s not your fault” but really(?!) how could I not feel responsible, all I had to do was hold a pregnancy. And then came the drop in hormones! I thought the hormones were bad; just wait until you stop them.

So now here we are we are doing a natural cycle this time. (!!!) I did the first of several ultrasounds last week. I start the ovulation tests tomorrow and another ultrasound on Thursday. Based on the results I would then do a trigger shot sometime at the end of this week and in six days we try another transfer. Going into this round I am more knowledgeable on the process, but slightly more nervous of the outcome.  All the positive thoughts are welcome!!! I will update again soon (I promise).