A long time coming.....

Hi, everyone!

I am really excited about this blog. It's a great way for us to keep friends and family updated without having to answer too many questions after what might have been a very rough day or week. I thought in this first post I would update everyone on some of what we've been through in the past few years. This will be a review for some of you and news to others. Keep in mind this is keeping a VERY long story short, but I did not want to post a novel here!

We were married in April 2006 and had a beautiful wedding despite the torrential rains. That fall, I got off of birth control and got on prenatal vitamins. Through a series of testing, we found out in January 2007 that things were not going to be as easy as we had hoped. However, we were not yet ready to pursue fertility treatments. We spent 2007 making some important decisions. In December, we had our first appointment with our reproductive endocrinologist.

In January 2008, I had a laproscopic hysteroscopy to remove stage 1 endometriosis, pelvic adhesions, ovarian cysts, and uterine polyps. We were officially ready to start infertility treatments.

The course of action our doctor chose for us was intra-uterine insemination, or IUI. If you aren't sure what this is, here's a link, though it might be more than you cared to know. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUI)

We had IUIs in February, March, April, and June of 2008 using both oral and injectible medications. Though my response to the medications was very good, we did not get pregnant. After being beaten up emotionally, financially, physically, and spiritually, our doctor told us it was time to move on to IVF. Again, if you're curious.....(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IVF)

We never thought IVF would be right for us. Not only is the cost prohibitive, but the procedure is much more involved in every way. Strangely enough, the risk for multiples is actually LESS with IVF than it is with IUI. Just a note for those of you who are worried we'll need our own reality TV show soon: Jon and Kate Gosselin of "Jon & Kate + 8" got both their sets of multiples from IUI, not IVF. That's not saying there won't be risks. I'm just putting things in perspective for you.

Well, I am sure you can all see where this is headed. We found a way to afford IVF and decided that whatever it required of us emotionally would be well worth even just the chance to have a child. We were able to get approved for a shared-risk program that guarantees all but a small portion of our money back if we do not succeed. We purchased a package that includes three fresh and three frozen (6 total) IVF cycles.

We've had some set backs along the way in terms of final approval and getting our protocol, but this time we are really ready to go! We're just waiting on mother nature to bring my next cycle. And that could be anywhere from 1 1/2 to 3 weeks.

Please pray for my sanity during this time. While we are very excited and know that we are blessed to have this opportunity, we know what the stakes are and that's what makes it tough.