Preheated Oven..........Where is my Bun ??

I know this blog is a little confusing with my trying to fill you in on the last 4 years while also trying to keeo you up to date with my bedrest. Bear with me - the 2 paths will cross at some point!

A little background - After the birth of my son if you would have asked me if I wanted another child it would not have taken me ten seconds to tell you no way. Not because I don't love my children but because Walter's first two years were so unpredictable and wild. To call those years scary is a huge simplicity of our feelings. However, because the good Lord inflicts all of us mothers with amnesia of our previous pregnanies and deliveries, after about eighteen months or so I started to put the hard sell on John. He really was not on board with another child at first, at all. After a few months and many deep discussions he began to know the exend of my desire for more children. Since he is from a family of 2 children, his mom and dad are both from families of 2 children, his sister has 2 children, it was hard for him to think outside the box. My family is crazy and loud and always in everyone's business, wildly loving although unfortunatley immune to boundaries. But I would not have it any other way. In fact, the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" has always reminded me of my family, even if we are not Greek. We might be nuts, we might argue at times like stray cats stuck in a shoebox, but that is us.

So John came around. He said he could tell how much it meant to me to have a third child and if the desire was tha strong, who was he to deny me? So off to work we go.
No luck! What is going on? My daughter was practically a honeymoon baby and with Walter, as soon as we found out about the clotting antibodies and I began Heparin therapy, I had no problems with my pregnancy. What gives? Every month more and more negative pregnancy tests. I just couldn't get it.

We first tried Clomid. Talk about a roller coaster. That drug is something else. I would wake up feeling like I was stuck in somebody else's skin and I had ocular migranes. It was absolutely awful and we did three rounds of Clomid with IUIs with no results. I was getting very frustrated and worried. I guess it is fair to add that by this point I was 34 and my husband was 42. My clock was beginning to click but his was like a grandfather clock. He really did not want to be "walking with a cane to this child's graduation" as he liked to put it.

After the three rounds my regular OB said there wass really nothing else he could do to help me. He felt that I was suffering from high FSH and PCOS and that I would benefit greatly from a reproductive endocrinologist. My sister had done IVF after a similar path so she referred me to her doctor, the absolutely amazing Dr. Brian Barnett at Plano Presby. He had a wait list, like every other reputable RE in the world, but it was only 4 months. Soon my number was up and I met with Dr. Barnett. We started off doing "medicated IUI" cycles which involves taking injectable drugs to stimulate follicle growth. Three rounds, big fat negatives every time. I was not responding to the stimulation from the Gonal-F.

So we were faced with the big question of IVF. I never thought our path to another child would lead us down this dark route. But God did, because he had provided us with an insurance plan that covered three successful rounds of IVF. By successful, they mean a erm pregnancy with live birth. I had never heard of such a thing. I had the office call three times to verify this absolutely amazing news. I couldn't believe it and it seemed as if the door to IVF had been opened to us. We never would have been able to afford it had we not had the insurance.

I had to take two months off from medications to let my ovaries settle back down to normal. Even though they were not stimulated enough during the IUI cycles, I guess Dr. Barnett wanted there to be a rest between the IUI cycles and the IVF cycles.