Free IVF Cycle - Clinical Trial

Thrive-IVF is doing a clinical trial that will provide A FREE IVF CYCLE! Here are the details from their website:

You may be eligible for the Thrive-IVF Research Study if you:

• Are between 21 and 38 years of age
• Have had 3 or more failed IVF cycles that included transfer of good-quality embryos (at least 2 of these involving the transfer of fresh embryos)

Study participants will be required to make approximately 11 clinic visits in the Thrive-IVF Research Study.

Qualified participants will receive IVF medications and study medication at no cost and IVF procedures at no cost.

Women who are pregnant at the end of the Thrive-IVF Research Study can participate in the Thrive-IVF Follow-up Study to monitor the progress of their pregnancies.

The Thrive-IVF Research Study is evaluating the efficacy, safety and tolerability of NT100, an investigational medicine in women who have had repeated IVF failures despite having good-quality embryos. NT100 is a novel biologic agent similar to a naturally occurring protein in the female reproductive tract that has been specifically designed and developed to improve pregnancy success rates and outcomes in women who have undergone multiple unsuccessful IVF procedures. NT100 is being evaluated to determine if it improves your chances of getting pregnant after IVF. Visitwww.noratherapeutics.com for more information about NT100.

To apply for the trials you can visit the following links:

http://www.thriveivf.com/About.action

If you live in/around Utah, the Utah Fertility Clinic and Dr. Foulk are participating in this trial so apply on both sites!!! It doesn't hurt to try both! Dr. Foulk is partners with our amazing Dr. Slater and he has worked with friends of ours too.

http://utahfertility.com/2013/11/21/ivf-clinical-trial-free-cycles/

You can also search this website for more clinical trails that may be in your area:

http://clinicaltrials.gov

Fill the Bank: Ways to Raise Money for Fertility Treatments

The average cost of one fresh cycle of IVF is $8,158. Doesn't seem too bad right? Maybe not at first, but this is a very deceiving number. This doesn't include the cost of your water ultrasounds, cryopreservation, labs, anesthesia, medications, and some other costs. These can add over $10,000 to your costs bringing your total to over $18,000! The first time I saw how much IVF cost I was beyond overwhelmed. When we first looked into IVF we were literally making about $12,000 per year, not what we were putting into savings, that was literally all we were making for the entire year. Obviously saving almost $20,000 at that rate was going to take forever and it seemed impossible, it would have been impossible. We were so blessed to find out that our insurance covered most of our costs for our first 3 cycles of IVF, and we were then blessed to have our sweet baby Isla. Now that we're looking into having another baby though, we are without fertility coverage and trying to figure out how we'll get there on a medical student budget. It is going to be a challenge, it has been a challenge, but we are determined to get there! These are some of the ways that we are fundraising for our next round of IVF and some other suggestions on how to cut some of the costs of fertility treatments.

Right now we are focused on 4 different ways to raise money.
1- Cutting down our monthly budget.
2- Moccasin sales
3- GiveForward fundraiser
4- 5k Fun Run

The first thing we did when trying to save money for another baby was cut down our monthly budget as much as we can. We switched to cloth diapers (which you can read about here), cut out date night money, and did our best to cut out any unnecessary spending. When you look at your monthly spending it is amazing to see how much you save by not going to dinner a couple times a month or cutting out $60 of diapers and wipes. These were two of our more major changes but they have made the biggest impact. Getting rid of date money doesn't mean getting rid of dates though! Always, always date your spouse! We have found so many things to do for free and it has been so great to go on a hike or a bike ride instead of sitting in a noisy restaurant together. Occasionally we still splurge on a couple ice-cream cones from Chick-Fil-A for our family date nights though and those sweet dates with our little family are the best $3 I've ever spent. Every penny really does add up. Eliminating a few "wants" from your budget each month can help you get a little closer to your goal.

Next up, my mocc shop! I have been selling baby moccasins and we put 100% of our profits directly towards our baby fund. Now I don't expect you all to start pumping out baby moccasins, in fact please don't! That just means less people buy mine... Try to use a talent you have to bring a little extra income into your home or if you're already working, do what you can to get more hours or get a second, extremely part time job if possible. Since I consider taking care of Isla as my full time job, and school is James' full time job, making and selling moccasins has been my part time gig and I'm loving it. It's something I can do from home and put as much effort into it as I can that day. If you're interested in purchasing a pair for your little one follow my InstaShop on Instagram @isla_and_i They are all genuine leather and each pair is handmade by me, they are $30 per pair.

We are also holding an actual online fundraiser through GiveForward. There are many websites like GiveForward that help you get donations for your cause from family and friends. We chose this particular site because it charges the least amount of fees from the sites we compared. To be honest, this has been the hardest fundraiser for me. Never did I imagine myself virtually panhandling for money from friends and family. Then again, never did I imagine that James would get cancer or that we would have to go through all of this for a baby. It definitely made me humble myself and I have realized it is more than ok to let people know you need help. Those that can't or aren't interested in donating won't and that's ok. I've realized that those people usually aren't secretly judging you, they're praying for you and hoping that those who can donate will. I've learned throughout our journey that there are a lot of people that genuinely care for the people around them. People want you to succeed, they want you to be happy, and when they can, they help make that possible. It is ok to ask for help.

Our last project that we're trying to get rolling is a 5k fun run. There are so many website such as active.com that will help you with all of the organization. We're trying to make our race as big as possible and have a few ideas in the works that hopefully turn into reality soon! I'll keep you all updated! It doesn't have to be big though. You can make it as simple as possible. Set a time, date, place, tell your friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors and have an open donation for people that want to participate. You may only raise a little bit of money but it's a little more than you had before and it's a great way to bring people together for a little exercise.

Now some ways to cut back on your overall costs. These ideas are ones that I have found through my own experience with our clinic and may not be available at other facilities.

Ask about discount programs. The fertility center we're going to offers varying discounts for military, returning patients, and grants for low income families. Check with your clinic to see if they offer anything like this. It may only save 10% but that's better than nothing!

After our fresh cycle I had quite a few medications left over that I knew I wouldn't ever use. They expired within a certain amount of time and I knew that we wouldn't be doing another fresh cycle within that time frame. I gave our fertility clinic those extra medications to give to other patients. This helped in my favor when I later needed a small dose of another medication. Instead of buying a whole prescription, I was given a dose for free from my office. Don't be afraid to ask for someone's excess medications, that one dose saved us over $100.

Pharmacy discount programs can also help save on your medications. It is not a form of insurance but it does help lower the cost of so many of your prescriptions, and you will have so many, trust me.

Search for grants offered in your state, I have found a few in the midwest especially. Yes it may be a one in a million chance, but it's a chance so take the time to apply. You never know what my happen!
Footsteps for Fertility is a program in Utah and Idaho that raffles off free cycles and grants at the end of a 5k run. If you live where you can participate, do it! Again, you never know what might happen!

Baby guarantee programs! This is most likely the route we're going. Our clinic is part of the Attain Network which offers multi cycle discounts and also offers live baby guarantees. If after the allotted number of cycles you do not go home with a live baby, they refund a large portion of your money. Since we had to do 3 cycles before we will most likely go with this program because it would be the most cost effective even if we only did 2 cycles this time.

Don't be overwhelmed with the initial cost of fertility treatments. It may seem impossible but if there is a will there is a way! It may be a long hard road but it's more than worth it.

From Blast to Birth to Birthday!

On Wednesday, my sweet little babe turned one. I can't even tell you how many times someone has told me, "They grow up so fast, my baby starts college this year!" They were all right! She has grown up way too fast and I've never wanted time to slow down so badly. I love every minute of every stage and I just wish they would last longer. 

One thing that is actually really neat about having a baby through in-vitro, is that you get to watch them grow from day one (well, technically day 5 for us!)

These are the actual blastocysts that they implanted for our third transfer. We're pretty sure the top left is Isla because that is the only one they said looked like it could turn into a viable pregnancy. Who knows though, Isla could have come from one of the other two and be even more of a miracle than we think!

In the ultrasound from our transfer, you can see three tiny bubbles. Each of these bubbles has a blast inside it, they're just too small to see. IVF really is an amazing process. Did you know that if you have multiple babies from one egg retrieval, they are conceived on the same day but can be born years apart? Our doctor told us that during our consultation and it really is kind of crazy if you think about it!

Our final ultrasound was just six days before Isla was born. Look at her huge cheeks! We knew she was just going to be perfect!

And then she was here! We couldn't have been more excited! (Read her birth story here!)

Every week for the last 52 weeks, we have taken a picture of Isla on Tuesday (lets be real, sometimes Wednesday or Thursday, but mostly Tuesday). It has been so neat to look back and see how much she changed from week to week. You forget so quickly what they looked like only two weeks ago.

Isla has been our biggest blessing throughout the past year. She has been the best baby. She rarely cried and I can honestly count on one hand how many times I've stayed up the whole night with her. Right after she was born, James and I kept saying that we were going to be in trouble with our next baby. Isla was honestly so easy that now we expect that! At the time though we didn't realize that she needed to be easy so we could handle what was ahead of us. We needed her to be happy so she could add light to James' day when things got hard. She has been everything to us and we are so thankful that we have such a beautiful spirit in our home. Hopefully we have taught her as many great things as she has taught us.

Happy Birthday beautiful girl! We love you!

In My Opinion, Get a Second Opinion

When we learned of James' vericocele, our first question was if we could fix it surgically. We were hoping that if we fixed the problem, we could possibly increase our chances of having children naturally.  The doctor we were seeing at the time simply told us that IVF was our best option for having children and that any surgical fix for the vericocele would not only be too expensive, but would also have little effect on our fertility. He sounded pretty sure of himself so we took his word for it and left it at that. That was our first mistake. Here are a few suggestions for whenever you get a serious diagnosis.
1- Go to the proper doctor. The doctor we were seeing was a general physician, or a family practice doctor. We should have been seeing a urologist or reproductive specialist. Doctors specialize for a reason.
2- If, like us, you're seeing a general physician and they suggest that there is something wrong, ask to be reffered to a specialist. Don't have their suggestion even be the first opinion.
3- After seeing a specialist, if you can, get a second opinion. Or third or fourth... Don't look for someone to tell you what you want to hear but be sure that you are given correct and up to date information.
It wasn't until after our 2nd cycle of IVF that my MIL actually recommended that we have the vericocele fixed. We told her what our doctor had originally told us but she still suggested that we see someone about it. James was also covered under his dad's insurance and they had already met most of their deductible that year, so it was worth a shot. We set up an appointment with a urologist and discovered that not only would the surgery be affordable,but it could also have a great impact on our fertility! Though it wasn't guaranteed, it was worth a try. That September James had the surgery. Looking back on it now, to be honest I don't know why we decided to do our third cycle of IVF. After the surgery we had to wait 6 months to find out if there was any improvement in James' sperm count, which there was. He went from less than 1 million to over 10 million. You would think that sounds like a lot but "normal" for a fertile man is at least 15 million sperm. I don't know if we were too impatient to keep waiting for improvement or if we were just inspired, maybe it was both but I'm so thankful we decided to go ahead with our final cycle anyway.

The Sweetest Sound

This time around we decided to wait a little longer before having our first ultrasound. We scheduled ultrasound for 8 weeks this time and patiently waited. Our little baby had other plans though. We were 6 weeks along when I started spotting. Panic set in and I thought for sure this was the end. Immediately we called the clinic and they said they would get us in during their lunch break and we could come down as soon as possible. James was at work and I was a mess but luckily my mom was able to rush home from work to drive me downtown. James met us there and they took us back for an ultrasound. There it was, our little circle, with a heartbeat. The sweetest, softest, flutter of a fetal pole. For once everything was ok. I just needed to breathe, get lots of fluids, and take it easy. We were ok though and that made us more than ok.

New Years Resolutions

I made a new years resolution to not get pregnant in 2012. Why? Because we all know that resolutions are always broken and yes, I was hoping to pull some reverse psychology fast one on the universe, karma, fate, my body, and everything else.
Injections started again at the beginning of January and I was confident this time. I made sure we were 100% precise in following every instruction that the doctor gave us. Our embryo transfer was scheduled for Wednesday, February 1st. This day just happened to be my mom's birthday and coincidentally, the exact same day of my friends successful embryo transfer from the year before. It was fate, things were going to work this time, I just knew it.
On Monday, January 30th we received a call from the fertility clinic. Dr. Slater had some unexpected scheduling conflicts and wouldn't be able to do our transfer that day. Looking at it now it really seems like no big deal, but at the time I wasn't sure what to do exactly. We could keep it that same day, and have Dr. Foulk do the procedure which would be fine, but at this point we had developed a relationship with Dr. Slater and really wanted her to do the transfer. Our other option was to do it the day after on the 2nd. That would also be fine except in my mind I was having a slight nervous breakdown. That was not the day originally planned, that was not my mom's birthday, that was not the same day as my friends successful transfer, that was not the day the stars would be aligned, that was just not the day! See, I am the type of person that rarely, if ever, makes plans. I love to fly by the seat of my pants as often as possible. When I do make plans though, that is what needs to happen. Anything that throws of my plans, throws off my life it seems like. I don't like it when plans get changed for unexpected reasons. We decided to continue working with Dr. Slater and switched to the next day anyway. In the end I knew it really didn't matter what day it was and she is who we started this journey with and we wanted to see it through with her.
It was Friday the 2nd, our transfer day. Again I was nervous, as if there was anything I could do to make this work. As we're driving to our appointment we get a call from the office. They had thawed the first straw of blasts and only one survived the thaw. They wanted to know if we wanted to thaw our last two blasts also. Since the previous two transfers didn't work with 2 blasts we decided that we needed to have more than one in there. They thawed the last 2 and they both thawed successfully, we now had three blasts ready to be transferred.
Dr. Slater's office rarely transfers more than two blast because they try to avoid multiples for the health of the mother and babies. Only one of our blasts looked like a truly viable candidate so we decided to implant all three. I'll be honest, I was terrified that we would have triplets. I thought I could handle twins, but the thought of instantly being outnumbered was a little daunting. It was still a risk we were willing to take though, three babies sounded better than no baby.
There was something about our third transfer that was different. Our insurance would only cover one fresh cycle and we knew we couldn't afford another fresh cycle on our own so we knew this was the end of our IVF journey either way. I don't know if it was as sense of relief or peace or both that came over me as we watched Dr. Slater strategically place each embryo, but I was happy and content.
It was time to wait our 10 more days. The day I went in for my beta test I told them to leave me a message when they called for my results. I had to work that day and I didn't want to get any bad news while I was there. When my phone rang it was torture not to answer it. I waited for it to notify me that the message had been left. I didn't realize when I told them to leave the message that there was no way I could wait another minute to learn the results. I called James and told him to listen to the message and then call me and let me know. How that was any easier I don't know but I couldn't listen myself. After James listened to the voicemail he called back and said the sweetest words I needed to hear, "You're going to be a mommy."

Twenty Four

After our miscarriage I was done. We had four eggs left but I didn't think I could bear any more heartbreak and disappointment. This time we opted not to roll into another cycle and took a break. I needed a break from all the injections, the doctor appointments, and the emotional roller coaster I was on. My birthday and the holidays were coming up soon and I wanted to enjoy them. We put IVF on the back burner and tried to move on for the time being. For now our plan was to try again around February or March 2012.
Thanksgiving came and went and soon after was my birthday. December 13th I turned 24. I was one year older and wiser and I was ready for 24 to be a good year, a great year. It didn't dissapoint. Day one, of year 24, my sister told me she was pregnant with her first baby. It was the first time in a long time that I was genuinely excited for someone else to be pregnant. I know that doesn't sound very nice, but honestly when you can't get pregnant and everyone around you seems like Fertile Mertyl, it's hard to be excited when everyday someone else tells you their pregnant. I was though, I was thrilled. I know she told me first so that I could process it and not be caught off gaurd when she announced it to everyone else, but I was elated and I couldn't wait for her to be a mom.
It made me want a baby even more though. I knew we wanted to take a break but I wanted our future neice or nephew to have a cousin. I wanted to experience the miracle of pregancy with my older sister, someone I could turn to for advice and help. So we decided to get back to the doctor and get ready for cycle number 3 after the new year.

Just Keep Rolling

Our test was negative. To be honest, I wasn't too surprised. I hadn't "felt pregnant" and as much as I wanted to believe it had worked, I didn't. As much as I thought I had prepared myself for a negative result though, I was still crushed. My spirit had been broken and I wasn't really sure what to do next. With the encouragement of the nurses and James, we decided to just roll into a frozen cycle. So what did this mean? You guessed it, more shots! Not the easy quick belly shots though, intramuscular shots, in my butt, daily. Awesome! By the end of this cycle I looked like I had been peppered by a shotgun across my whole backside (could that sound anymore redneck?). It was true though, I was black and blue from row after row of shots.
It takes about a month to prepare for another cycle just like regular pregnancy. The month went by one shot at a time and we were ready for our transfer. Our office stores two embryos per tube, lucky for us, both embryos looked great after the thaw and we decided to implant two. We now had 4 embryos still frozen.
We went home and put our picture of our little blasts on the fridge again. We were so hopeful this time. I felt like I had healed from my egg retrieval and my body wasn't in shock from so much going on. I felt better and a few days after our transfer I actually felt different. Not wanting to get my hopes up though I tried not to read into things too much. Again we waited 10 days... 10 long days.

Beta test: Pregnant!

I don't know if I had ever been so happy! We shouted, we cried, we hugged, we told our parents and siblings, we were thrilled! We continued progesterone shots everyday to help feed our little embryo hoping to nurture it and help it grow into a beautiful baby. The doctor appointments continued and at 7 weeks we went in for our first ultrasound.
I was so excited, I was finally going to see our baby that I had waited so long to see. I knew it would only look like a little circle with a heartbeat but that little circle was my whole life. There we were, holding hands, waiting for our first baby to make its small screen debut. The nurse kept moving the ultra sound wand looking around and we waited for her to point out our baby. Then we saw it! Our little circle, it was perfect! But it wasn't. The nurse asked how far along I was supposed to be, if I was sure it was 7 weeks. The baby was measuring a little small at only 6 weeks 2 days. She told us not to worry, that this happens often. We scheduled another ultrasound for the next week to see if there was growth and if we could find a heartbeat the next week.
So we waited again. I would look the pictures of our blasts and just tell them to grow. I would rub my belly and just wish, hope, pray, and try to will our baby to grow. Seven days later we went back to for our ultra sound. It was even smaller than before and there was no heartbeat. We had lost the pregnancy.
James and our sweet nurse did everything they could to console me. Our nurse told me my options as far as removing any tissue that was left but I decided to just let everything pass on it's own. She gave us time to ourselves and then let us go out the back so we could have some privacy.
A few days later the spotting started. I knew it was time. That night around 10 the cramping started. It was miserable. I began to imagine that labor would be a similar experience just with a happier ending. I silently slipped out of bed and laid on the bathroom floor where I just cried. I cried and I prayed and I let everything pass naturally. After a few hours the pain continued to get more intense until I felt like it couldn't get any worse. The pain was healing though. It made me cry, it made me feel, it made me grieve. I know not all people are affected by an early miscarriage the same way, but for me I had lost a child. A child I wouldn't ever see but one I still wouldn't ever forget. As I cried and prayed I pleaded for the pain to lessen, a silent plea that seemed unanswered as the pain became worse and worse. It was about 6 in the morning now and I was exhausted. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted. I just wanted things to end and they did. I suddenly felt relief and it was over faster than it started. I went back to bed and fell asleep almost immediately.
James took the day off of work and he just laid with me all day. I slept most of the day and when I wasn't sleeping he just listened to me. Occasionally he would talk and tell me everything would work out, but for the most part he just listened and loved and that was all I needed.

A Fresh Start: Cycle Number 1

The husband's process:
Take an antibiotic for about a week, come in and leave a back up deposit.
Take one more pill, leave a deposit on the day of the egg retrieval.
Wash your hands and pat yourself on the back.


My process:
If you haven't every been through infertility treatments or are just starting out, the one thing to prepare yourself for is a lot of shots, a lot blood draws, and more shots. So, if you have any type of needle phobia, you'll have to get over it quick. Our first cycle we started with lupron and menopure, two subcutaneous injections (belly shots) that basically stimulate your egg growth and keep you from releasing them. Along with the shots, they had me take a general antibiotic, to keep my body as healthy as possible, baby aspirin to keep my blood thin, and a prenatal vitamin in preparation for pregnancy. For the first few weeks, we did injections almost daily and then went in for blood work and ultra sounds at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. With the ultrasounds they look at your ovaries and your eggs and measure them to see if they've matured and are ready to be released. Towards the end you're not really allowed to do much because your ovaries are super heavy and they don't want you to flip them or cause any other problems. After around a month of stimulating and growing, we were ready for the egg retrieval though!
The egg retrieval is the only surgical part of IVF. Everything else is pretty simple and not too uncomfortable. I had only been put under once before when I had my wisdom teeth taken out in high school. I have no fear of anesthesia, but when I woke up from having my teeth removed my mom told me there was a lot of crying and concern about people stealing my teeth, so I thought I should prepare James for that. My egg retrieval went very well though and there was minimal crying after coming out of anesthesia. They were able to retrieve 21 eggs, 19 of them fertilized, and 12 of them divided into successful blasts (day 5 embryos). We were so excited for our embryo transfer a few days later.
The transfer is a simple process. They do an ultrasound to decide where to place the eggs in your uterus and then just push them in there with a catheter. Then you lay there for about a half hour to let gravity help out a bit (see I wasn't totally crazy) and you're on your way. For the next three days you do nothing but sit on the couch and make people wait on you. We had a mobster movie marathon ended up only consisting of Scarface since we couldn't find The Godfather anywhere. So instead I watched Twilight (really wishing I would have watched something else) and my G-ma joined me for Somewhere in Time.
Then we waited. Ten days. What seemed like the ten longest days of my life.
Beta test (pregnancy test): Negative.

Falling Into Place

It was around March of 2011 that we were given the diagnosis of male factor infertility. I was feeling hopeless and depressed about the whole situation. In early April, I was doing a little blog stalking, when I stumbled across a friend from high school's blog. Sure enough, like everyone else I knew at the time (or so I felt anyway), she was pregnant. This was different though, the more I read on the more excited I actually got. They had just completed three cycles of IVF and their third was not only successful, but they were having twins! In one short blog post I was given everything I needed again, hope. It was just a glimmer but it was enough to wake me up and realize that we could have the same results someday. I immediately found this friend on facebook and messaged her with a few questions about their process. She was so willing to help me out as much as she could and just watered my little seed of hope. They had their IVF services at the Idaho Center for Reproductive Medicine which also had sister locations in Utah and Nevada. My friend could not say enough wonderful things about Dr. Foulk and their experience with his office. We were currently living in Utah so I began looking into services and those locations. Financially it seemed like a long shot but my hope was still there. James and I discussed options of taking out loans, borrowing from family, and other ways to save but after being told that it could cost $20-30,000 it still seemed out of reach.
James decided that our best option was for both of us to work for a year and save as much as we could. We moved in with family to cut back on rent while James finished his undergrad and then after he graduated we moved to Idaho to live with my mom. James took a year off from school while he applied to medical schools and worked at the hospital doing registration. I transferred to a salon at the mall and did my best to build a clientele as quickly as possible. It was around this time that I finally asked my friend how they paid for their cycles. Which I strongly, strongly dislike asking people financial questions, so this wasn't an easy thing for me to do. Her response blew my mind though, insurance! Some of you may be more health savvy than I am, but I had been told by everyone that fertility services were not covered by insurance, so I was shocked!
Now I know that only 15 states require insurance companies to cover infertility services, including IVF. Idaho is not one of those states though. I was under 26 at the time and thanks to ObamaCare (they did at least one thing right) I was covered under my dad's insurance. Though my dad works in Idaho, his company is based out of California, which means so was their insurance. It felt like things were finally falling into place.
After confirming with my insurance that we were covered, I quickly did a check to see if they covered Dr. Foulk, and they did! I couldn't dial the number fast enough to set up our consultation. It turned out that Dr. Foulk was not seeing new patients at the Idaho location so I was slightly disappointed when we were scheduled with Dr. Slater. Our disappointment was immediately alleviated after meeting her though.
When we scheduled the consultation, I thought we would go in, discuss IVF in general, leave and then later decide what we were going to do. I was very wrong. We went in they told us about the whole process, gave us a calendar, did blood work and an ultrasound and we were ready to go! This may not be how every office works, but I was so happy they were as excited as we were to get the ball rolling. We were perfect candidates, we had male factor infertility, we were young and healthy, I had plenty of eggs left, and we were one small step closer to becoming a mommy and daddy.

Let's Have a Baby, simple right?

One of my biggest reasons for starting this blog is to share our story and hopefully help others that are dealing with infertility. If anything, just a little hope for someone that needs it. Infertility is hard, there is no other way to say it. Before I begin with our story though, I will say this, I would  not trade a minute of our process for anything. It was one of the hardest things I have ever been through, but I learned and I grew so much through this process, and it has made me the best person and mother I can be. For that, I am so grateful.
Lets go back about 3 1/2 years...
James and I had been married about 2 1/2 years and like most couples we were ready to "start trying" to have a baby. Let the unprotected sex begin! Oh how simple we thought it would be. I had been off of birth control for about 3 months and everything seemed to be working right on my end so we were thinking we should have a baby by the new year. That was around March of 2010...
A few weeks later to our surprise, I was late. Yay! We didn't think things would happen that soon but we were hopeful. So we picked up a pregnancy test and eagerly waited to take it the next morning. It was negative. Well maybe we took it too early, maybe I didn't pee on the stick enough, lets try again next week... We waited another week and still no period but not pregnant either, again. We waited and waited and waited even more and still no sign of anything.
Never in my life had I had any problems with my cycle, so I just wanted to assume that all of the tests I had taken were broken and I was pregnant. I decided that I should go to the doctor, take a test there and get checked out. After yet another negative test, I finally gave up the hope that I was pregnant. I started to blame whatever was happening on stress. My parents were getting divorced after 25 years of marriage (don't be sad, they remarried each other later, but that is a whole other story...) but I was a bit of a mess over the whole thing. That, on top of not being pregnant (I wasn't very patient), was too much for me to handle and it was just making things worse.
When I started breaking out like a pubescent teenager, one of the nurses suggested I get checked for PCOS, or polycystic ovary syndrome. She didn't explain what it was so I googled it and after webmd basically told me we would never have children, I was an even bigger mess than I was before. Luckily, after some tests, the doctor reassured me that I didn't have PCOS. He encouraged me to relax and had me start doing a basal body temperature chart to see if I was ovulating. Every morning for a month, I woke up and immediately took my temperature, anxiously waiting for a spike. Things varied a little but never a spike. The discouragement kept piling on.
Back to the doctor, again.
This time the doctor recommended we start clomid, a medication used to help women ovulate. He first had me take birth control for a month (seems a little backwards right?) to regulate my hormones and then the next month I began taking clomid. He did blood  tests to see if it had worked and we had progress! We were so excited to at least be moving forward in our goal to get pregnant. When we didn't get pregnant that month I wasn't too disappointed because I knew things were at least improving.
The next month we were determined to get pregnant. I was still doing my basal body temperature tests, I bought at home ovulation tests, and we had sex every other day like they recommended. I literally laid on my back with my feet above my head for 20 minutes after every time, trying to encourage gravity to help us out a bit. Nothing says "I love you" quite like, "Hurry get off me so I can put my butt up." Never let the romance die people...
That month I was sure it had happened, so when the test was negative again I was devastated. This time our doctor asked us to do a post-coital test. For those of you that don't know what that is, like me, let me explain. That's when you have sex and then rush to see the doctor so he can withdraw your man's deposit and then test it to see if your cervical fluid is killing the sperm. Sounds awesome. So the next time we got busy I had the honor of calling up the old lady nurse and saying, "We need to see the doctor as soon as possible, we just had sex." Insert awkward pause here. "Oh yes, it's for a post-coital test." Insert longer awkward pause and then "ok, he'll see you in about 15 minutes."
So we rushed to the doctor and this was the day we finally found the source of our problem. After the doctor checked everything under the microscope he came back in to ask us if we really did just have intercourse. Um no doc, I just like to embarrass myself with awkward doctor appointments. Well we had no sperm, not a single swimmer. The doctor decided we should check James out this time (why we didn't do this to begin with almost a year ago, I have no idea). He said it seemed like he had a vericocele, basically a cluster of veins in the scrotum the can cause problems with your testicles. It was at this point that he told us the in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, was our only hope. I thought I was devastated before. This was the ultimate blow to any hope I had left.
We left the office pretty quickly and not a moment too soon. The second I got in the car I lost all control. I was sobbing, hyperventilating, full on meltdown. All I had ever wanted was to be a mom, to feel my unborn baby move inside of me, and it seemed like a lost cause at this point. We were poor college students with hardly any income. James was just finishing his undergraduate degree but with medical school and residency in our future, we thought it would be at least 9 more years before IVF was even a real possibility. I was heartbroken.